"You are in danger - grave danger. I tell to you. I! And you do not know who I am?" -Hercule Poirot, Peril at End House, p. 23
We have come to the end of our first #YOAreadalong! Thanks so much to those of you who read Peril at End House with us this week - it was so fun to hear your thoughts and become better acquainted over Agatha! Also - stay tuned for the winner of our #giveaway announcement in the next few days! And, for those of you who haven't had a chance to read Peril yet, fear not! We will still give you our recap for this week, and you can join us for our next #YOAreadalong, Murder on the Orient Express!
The Sum of It:
Hercule Poirot is still "retired", but is happily reunited with his bestie Hastings for a seaside vacay. While getting their resort on, Poirot literally stumbles upon a cute girl named Nick Buckley who, while they are chatting, is nearly killed by a stray bullet. Poirot is obviously concerned for her safety and goes into full Papa Poirot mode and makes it his life mission to keep her out of harm's way. Nick is a little apprehensive (and sassy) at first about this total random foreign stranger making his way into her life and insisting that someone is trying to #MURDER her, but after Poirot has Hastings explain to Nick just exactly who they are dealing with (THE Poirot!), she takes him seriously.
Poirot suggests she find a fairly dull, yet reliable, friend to come stay with her to make sure there's no more attempted murder funny business going on so Nick says I HAVE JUST THE GIRL! Aka, her cousin Maggie. However, Cousin Maggie has been at Nick's fairly crumbly mansion, End House, for not even 24 hours when she is found #MURDERED, and apparently mistaken for Nick when she is killed! Poirot, feeling fairly devastated that he was not able to prevent this death from happening under his nose, vows to track down the killer before they are able to knock off their intended target.
Nick has surrounded herself with quite the cast of characters who sound like a real bunch of #newromantics in her crumbly old house, including Nick's cousin Mr. Vyse, a lawyer whom Hastings is immediately suspicious of on account of his being a lawyer and having blonde hair and an impassive face, Commander Challenger, a stalwart military man with a suntanned face and a not-so-secret love for Nick, Freddie (aka Frederica), Nick's alternatively zen and spastic (#cocaine) bff, and Mr. Lazarus, a glamorous and wealthy art dealer who is Freddie's not-so-secret man on the side. Nick is renting the lodge on her property to some VERY AUSTRALIAN AUSTRALIANS (Poirot finds them suspicious because they seem toooo sincere). Some characters outside the frame include Nick's secret lover, a wealthy, Lindbergh-style pilot trying to fly around the world, and Freddie's erstwhile husband. We also get to see Inspector Japp!
To help with sorting out all the potential suspects, Poirot creates a list of possible baddies, A-J, item J being someone who exists but is unknown. Nick gets locked up in a hospital (for her own protection), and Poirot gets down to business with the investigating, at one point even making Hastings pretend to be a medium conducting a seance (blessed Hastings), before revealing a red herring or two AND surprising everyone with the #DARKTRUTH in the end.
Because that's what we all do on our seaside vacays.
The YOA Treatment:
Though there are a million things we could touch on, we want to leave some of the discussion to you guys! A few things we want to highlight:
>The Agatha Wrap Up: one of the things that is just so deliciously satisfying about Agatha Christie novels is how you rarely (if ever!) have lingering questions after you finish the book. Each detail of the storyline is there for a reason, and if it isn't there to bring color or character to the plot, you're going to find out why it's included before the book is done. One reader (Kelly) pointed out that Agatha goes to the trouble of resolving a minor, minor plot point at the very end of Peril and how pleasant it is to end on that kind of note.
>Sassy Poirot: Poirot is particularly sassy in this book. He and Hastings have their typical bickering, but it's at new heights during their End House adventures. Poirot is calling Hastings his "faithful dog", turning up his nose at English breakfasts, and makes a passionate plea for Hastings to get a Poirot-esque mustache (and to part his hair in the middle so as to be more symmetrical and aesthetically pleasing). Hastings observes that he repressed a "shudder at the thought." We also get some standard Poirot-to-Hastings zingers, including: "Hastings has a singularly beautiful nature. It has been the greatest hindrance to me at times." Of himself, Poirot cutely says, "I am convinced that le bon Dieu created Hercule Poirot for the express purpose of interfering. It is my metier."
>Classic Hastings: Hastings has previously revealed himself to be 100% certain of many things, and as a general rule he is almost always wrong and then totally baffled by his own wrongness. Poirot has picked up on this trend, saying to his friend after a particularly certain character assessment: "You have an extraordinary effect on me, Hastings. You have so strongly the flair in the wrong direction that I am almost tempted to go by it!" Hastings also recounts his own bafflement in an adorable story about Poirot's one failed case, saying "And I smiled, for at the time that Poirot told me that tale, he had instructed me to say "chocolate box" to him if ever I should fancy he was growing conceited! He was then bitterly offended when I used the magical words only a minute and a quarter later." So mysterious can't imagine why Poirot was annoyed by that.
>Style: This feels like quintessential Agatha and Poirot. The storytelling is pretty tight, although not quite at its zenith, and the mystery offers the classic set of twists at the end that leave you marveling at Agatha's creativity. Though some of the red herrings just FEEL like red herrings, it's fantastic how she ties them into the story so that even though they're not the main solution to the mystery, they are a part of the whole in a really clever way.
We also get a little more of a look into some of the big questions one could consider in mystery writing. In her autobiography, Agatha mentions that she is much more interested in the victim of the crime than the perpetrator. In this book, Poirot shares this perspective as he is discussing one of the many attempts on Nick's life, saying to her "For me -- I have different work to perform. I have the innocent to think of, not the guilty -- the victim, not the criminal." But this doesn't mean that Poirot isn't also trying to get into the psyche of the murderer. As he is trying to work through all his theories with the trusty Hastings, he exclaims "Motive!", saying "Let us come back to that, and regard this problem calmly and methodically. To begin with, how many kinds of motive are there for murder? What are the motives which lead one human being to take another human being's life?"
What did you love or hate about the book?? If this is your first Agatha reading experience, are you hooked? Did you already run out to your local book store or fire up the ol' Amazon account and grab some more? Will you join us for our next #YOAreadalong?? TELL US ALL YOUR THOUGHTZ AND FEELINGZ!!
