I Saw Three Sons Come Sailing In: Hercule Poirot's Christmas | 1938

(image from here)

"Mon cher, everyone lies — in parts like the egg of the English curate. It is profitable to separate the harmless lies from the vital ones."
-Hercule Poirot, Hercule Poirot's Christmas, p. 89

The Sum of It:
This week we read, quite out of season, Hercule Poirot's Christmas. Though most of the story takes place on the usually-merry Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day, this story focuses on the all-but-happy Lee Family begrudgingly spending the holiday together, with deadly consequences. Patriarch Simeon Lee is a richy-rich who is wealthy enough to keep piles of diamonds in the house (albeit in a safe, but still…) and has spent his life openly cheating on his wife, treating her and his kids pretty terribly, and generally being a super crank. His son, Alfred, and daughter-in-law, Lydia live at home and try to keep tabs on the old man, but this year Simeon Lee wants his entire family home for Christmas. Enter his "respectable" M.P. son, George and much-younger, gold-digger-ish wife, Magdalene, and the once-banished artist son, Harry and wife, Hilda. But the guest list doesn't stop there. Once upon a time Simeon's daughter, Jennifer, married a Spaniard and their now-orphaned daughter, Pilar, shows up to see if her grandpa can spare any affection and/or money. And the son of Simeon's one-time business partner, Stephen Farr, has traveled all the way from South Africa to look up the Lees for Christmas. With the whole family assembled, Simeon acts in true grumpy grandpa fashion by going to bed early, but not before telling his kids they're the worst and not-so-subtly hinting he is thinking about changing his will. Just like horrible Mama Boynton in Appointment with Death, no one is TOO torn up when he is later found rather gruesomely murdered in his completely trashed room (was there a struggle? Did someone have a major furniture vendetta?).

An Inspector Sugden is quickly on the scene due to a pre-death call from Simeon Lee insinuating one of his family members stole his precious diamonds. Sugden teams up with a Colonel Johnson and his Christmas guest, Hercule Poirot, to solve the crime!  But these three have a tough time of it due to the fact that a.) all of Simeon Lee's family had a motive for killing him because he was #THEWORST, b.) his dying screams led his family to find him in his room locked FROM THE INSIDE and yet, c.) no one appeared to have escaped through the window #MYSTERY.

The YOA Treatment:
One of the supplemental books we have read this year is A Talent to Deceive: An Appreciation of Agatha Christie by Robert Barnard. This is a fascinating read for any Agatha lover. Barnard offers several chapters of smart and often very witty analysis of Agatha Christie as an author, and, more importantly, what made her such a successful one. He spends one chapter giving some extra time to what he calls Agatha's "Three Prize Specimens," including Hercule Poirot's Christmas. One of the things Barnard appreciates about Agatha is that not only was she committed to giving her reader a truly suspenseful mystery, she was also committed to playing fair with her reader when it comes to the solution of the puzzle. Even if you can't guess the ending, when Poirot finally fills that drawing room with the suspects and lays out just how the crime was done, you find yourself hitting yourself on the head and saying "well, duh! All those clues WERE right there in front of me!" and you're not necessarily mad at Agatha for having sprinkled enough red herrings to put you off the importance of the clues, you're more mad at yourself for not having put them together. Or, if we're being totally honest, completely okay with not having guessed because it's kind of more fun to be in suspense the whole time, right!?

This week's read reminds us of what we all love most about Agatha: the puzzle. As Barnard says: "All in all Hercule Poirot's Christmas is a highly superior example of Christie's habitual procedures in her classic phase: the plot is meticulously thought through, not a detail is misplaced or without significance in the total scheme, and above all the reader has that satisfying sense that the clues have all been fairly and squarely placed in front of him—even if he has somehow been induced to look out of the window at the crucial moment of placing" (p. 81).

-A. & E.
SaveSave

Cruella de Boynton: Appointment with Death | 1938

(image from here)

"You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?" 

- Unknown Whisperer (until the end of the book...), Appointment with Death, p. 1

The Sum of It:
We turn, dear readers, once again to the Middle East for our second book of this week: Appointment with Death. Set first in Jerusalem, this story focuses on the most depressing family of all time: The Boyntons. The Boyntons are a rag-tag group of emotionally abused, American step and half brothers and sisters who are (basically, literally) under the thumb of their disgusting (the exact words used to describe her are "the grotesque, Buddha-like figure" with fat hands, among other things) and super, duper psycho mother. #Yikes. These grown adults are constantly at their mother's beck and call, are not allowed to leave their home (uh...except on this random vacay), are not allowed to get jobs, and can only talk to people their mother says they can. Her list of Okay People most definitely does not include young hot shot doctor, Sarah King, who has developed a bit of a crush on Raymond Boynton. We see most of the first half of the book through the eyes of Dr. King, or Dr. Gerard, a French doctor who is also having a Middle East tour. These two are fascinated by the prisoner-like Boynton children and their crazy mom and the psychology behind the hold she has on them.

After several chapters of Truly Awful Things Happening to all the Boynton Kids, the group moves their vacation to a more remote location in Petra, along with another American woman (who has married a fancy Lord Downton-Abbey style), Lady Westholme, and old-maidy-type named Miss Pierce. The group is gelling as well as can be expected when, of course, one afternoon the horrid Mrs. Boynton is found #DEAD alone in her lawn chair! As you can imagine, none of her kids are terribly torn up and everyone seems cool with saying "oh yeah she def just died of regular heart stuff"...except for Hercule Poirot. With basically everyone having a motive for knocking old sourface Boynton off, Poirot needs to know if they are dealing with just #DEATH or #MURDER. Commissioned by a Colonel Carbury to solve the crime in just 24 hours, Poirot sits down for some long chats with each person involved and, of course, in true Poirot fashion, finds the truth with time to spare.

The YOA Treatment:
I must admit (without giving any spoilers), that the end of the book was slightly disappointing. And by the end I mean the solution. But while the ending might not be 100% satisfying, the ride truly is. Appointment with Death features a lot of the Poirot order and method we have come to know and love. For example, at one point he writes out a list of nine items that are just simply interesting about the case, and then goes back through to see if he can reconcile all of them together or if there are any that conflict (you guessed it, there are!) But Poirot also spends a great deal of time thinking through the psychology of this #MURDER. He considers each suspect and decides to prove each of them innocent if he can, and if he cannot...well they most certainly must be the guilty party. Appointment with Death shows the maturity #DameAgatha was reaching as a writer, not necessarily (in this case) with stunning plot development, but in a very logical and convincing understanding of psychology.

Another interesting tidbit - Appointment with Death mentions not one, but two of Poirot's previous cases! The work he did on the A.B.C. Murders and, most notably, his success with that little affair on the Orient Express. Now, I shall not reveal the context in which this case was brought up, for it shall spoil the end of that book which is considered one of Agatha's finest! But for those of you who are familiar with the ending of Orient Express, you will no doubt be able to sniff out the connection made between the two cases...

-A.