He is an Englishman: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe | 1940

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"Hercule Poirot remained sipping his chocolate and going over the facts as he had just outlined. He felt satisfied that they were as he had stated them. Within that circle of persons was the hand that had actually done the deed -- no matter whose the inspiration had been. Then his eyebrows shot up as he realized that the list was incomplete. He had left out one name." - One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, p. 89

The Sum of It:
So this one begins in everyone's favorite locale, the dentist's office. Dr. Morel is complaining to his sister that his assistant is out because her aunt had a stroke (#howdareshe) and that he thinks she's lying about it just to go hook up with her boyfriend of whom Dr. Morel does not approve. On this day, Poirot has his regular 6-month dentist appointment and interacts with some other patrons of the establishment as he waits for and then leaves his appointment, including a super scowly but attractive young man (Mr. Raikes), a military man with fabulous mustaches #Poirotmancrush #probably (Colonel Abercrombie), and a shabby, artsy looking lady with fugly buckled shoes (Ms. Mabelle Sainsbury Seale). As Poirot is leaving, this lady knocks one of the buckles off her shoe on a car door and Poirot picks it up for her (while judging her for her totally not chic footwear).

Just a few hours after Poirot goes home, our old pal Inspector Japp comes a'calling for him because Dr. Morel has been shot dead in his office (suicide, maybe?)! The reason Scotland Yard is involved rather than just the local bobbies is that a v. important British banking man, Alistair Blunt, had an appointment shortly before Dr. M was offed, and they're afraid it might have been an attempt on his life. Mr. Blunt, being a bigtime financier and conservative has, depending on who you ask, protected England from the volatile political forces sweeping through other countries by keeping the nation on firm financial footing OR acted as a fuddy-duddy impediment to progress with his old-school conservative financial ideas #feeltheBern.

Anyhow, Poirot is totally convinced Dr. M was murdered, while Japp (typically) takes everything at face value and assumes it is suicide. Poirot digs a bit further because he just doesn't buy it, and something feels weird. A few days later, one of the other folks who visited Dr. Morel's office that day turns up dead at his hotel of apparent novocaine/adrenaline poisoning, and Japp again decides for sure Dr. M killed himself because he realized he had poisoned his patient. Poirot still doesn't buy it. A few days later, Ms. Sainsbury Seale (of the shoe buckles) disappears, causing everyone (probably except Poirot b/c he's ten steps ahead) to wonder if her disappearance is linked to the deaths of the dentist and the other dude, Mr. Amberiotis #THEPLOTTHICKENS. Mr. Blunt, the financier, is v. concerned about the case because everyone is trying to figure out if it actually has to do with people trying to off him, and eventually asks Poirot to do a little investigating, particularly into Sainsbury Seale's disappearance. One of the other patients that day was a former secret agent, and Poirot chats with him frequently about the case, sussing out all the themes of potential political intrigue from the facts of the case. The little web tightens, and secret agents get involved, before eventually Poirot tracks down the real clues and sorts them out from some very red herrings.

The YOA Treatment:
In the US (at least originally), this book was called The Patriotic Murders (which honestly is a better name than One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, IMHO, which sounds kind of juvenile). The Patriotic Murders title also fits with the themes present in the book, which of course are #MURDER and also #PATRIOTISM, as one of the main characters is basically a Gilbert & Sullivan musical always banging on about duty to England. Presumably the title One, Two, Buckle My Shoe was inspired by the shoe buckles on Ms. Sainsbury Seale's fugly shoes, and Agatha carried it through the book, naming various chapters after lines in that little nursery rhyme (if you've seen the Suchet version they take it EVEN FURTHER by allowing creepy children to sing the bloody rhyme throughout the film, making it way creepier than necessary). This one is a pretty straight-up whodunnit for Poirot, who even gets tripped up himself by the clever twists and turns of intrigue as the plot winds along.

I enjoyed this one, and would even place it up there near the top of my list of Poirot books we've read this year, because the plot was intriguing, and it was really interesting how Agatha incorporated some of the political arguments of the day into the mystery. There were also some pretty interesting parallels to today's totally bananas political environment, including this, which must have been relevant in 1940 but could also basically be an opinion piece on the 2016 elections (and #Brexit, sorry European/British friends, at least you don't have Trump?):

"Sweep away the old order! The Tories, the Conservatives, the Diehards, the hardheaded suspicious Business Men, that's the idea. Perhaps these people are right -- I don't know -- but I know one thing -- you've got to have something to put in place of the old order -- something that will work -- not just something that sounds all right."

This was a great book to read in an election year, because the political themes add a fascinating element to the really solid mystery of the story. Without providing too many spoilers, it's difficult to say how, exactly, those play into the story and the solving of the mystery, but I recommend this one to anyone who likes a little politics & government with their fiction.

- E.