OY with the Short Stories Already: The Mysterious Mr. Quin | 1930

“In moments of great stress, the mind focuses itself upon some quite unimportant matter which is remembered long afterwards with the utmost fidelity, driven in, as it were, by the mental stress of the moment. It may be some quite irrelevant detail, like the pattern of a wallpaper, but it will never be forgotten.” 

― The Mysterious Mr. Quin

The Sum of It:

As indicated in this post's title, this book is a set of short stories that are all set in different locations and involve different characters, with the exception of two: Mr. Satterthwait, an older man with impeccable culinary appetites and an interest in nosing about in other people's drama, and Mr. Harley Quin, a mysterious stranger who turns up at opportune moments to help Mr. Satterthwait figure out who done it and strategically seats himself in such a way that a stained glass window makes his outfit look colorful and so that shadows fall across his face, making him look like he's wearing a mask. LIKE A HARLEQUIN, GET IT? His function is that something about him helps other people remember important but seemingly insignificant details that are essential to mystery solving. He does this by staring at people from dark corners and asking questions like "why?"

The YOA Treatment:

Ok. With every apology and all due respect to Dame Agatha, this book was REALLY tough for me to get through. A set of short stories, which is not my favorite medium to begin with so I could be impaired by my bias, these tales are each so sketchy plot-wise as to be at times truly confusing in the way they careen along to a marginal resolution. The two characters who link everything together, the eponymous Harley Quin and his friend Mr. Satterthwait, appear throughout, but Mr. Quin hardly ever says anything, and at the end turns out to be some kind of potentially spiritual being (Is he Death? Is he, like, a ghost? I honestly do not know). The additional characters in each story are totally forgettable, if they even take hold in the imagination long enough to care what resolution there is to the mystery. I suspect this is why Harley Quin hasn't taken hold as a character in literary history in the same way as Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple. 

In her autobiography, Agatha mentions that at points in her career, writing was more of a job than a joy. The way these plots and even the theme and character of Harley Quin feel unfinished and unresolved, I can't help but wonder if this set of stories was written during one of those moods. We've read that allegedly Agatha really liked Harley Quin as a character, so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt til I try another of his books, but so far I am noooot feelin' it. SORRY AGATHA!!

-E.

A Tale of Egg & Mugg: Three Act Tragedy | 1934

(image from here)

"My friend, do not ask me to do anything of an active nature. It is my lifelong conviction that any problem is best solved by thought." - Hercule Poirot, Three Act Tragedy, p. 139.

The Sum of It:
Hercule Poirot is still in retirement, and yet, murder cannot help but follow him wherever he goes. In this case, Poirot has gone to dine at Crow's Nest: the home of aging actor, Sir Charles Cartwright. What seems like fairly straightforward dinner party turns into a tragic evening when unassuming Reverend Stephen Babbington takes a sip of his first cocktail in years, and promptly drops dead. Who could possibly have a reason to kill an adorable old cleric?!, says Poirot and just about everyone else. But when nearly all the same guests get together a few weeks later and their host, Dr. Bartholomew Strange, dies under similar circumstances, Poirot is forced to eat his words and agree to look into the case. Poirot joins a merry band of crime solvers, namely Sir Charles, his crush Hermione "Egg" Lytton Gore (this has to go in the books as one of Agatha's best character names), and Mr. Satterthwaite, a character Agatha fans will know from his work with Mr. Harley Quin in The Mysterious Mr. Quin.

Three Act Tragedy (also published as Murder in Three Acts) features some very mysterious elements INDEED including, but not limited to people poisoned from glasses with NO TRACES OF POISON, a disappearing blackmailing butler, and an intriguing new arrival at a local mental institution.

The YOA Treatment:
I'm going to be honest - this read is probably not going to go on my favorites list. The main reason being: not enough Poirot. The book is categorized as A Hercule Poirot Mystery, and yet most of the detective grunt work is done by Sir Charles, Egg, and Mr. Satterthwaite, with the latter giving the majority of the perspective of the story. Poirot pops into the story about halfway through and offers up his little grey cells to ruminate over all the clues the other three have gathered and give his customary dramatic reveal speech to stun his audience with the killer's identity.

In her Autobiography, Agatha says that Mr. Quin was one of her favorite characters, as well as his "emissary," Mr. Satterthwaite. It is obvious in Three Act Tragedy that Agatha is fond of Satterthwaite, giving him quirky little observations about the other characters, such as "Merciless, these modern young women, and terrifyingly alive" as well as making him very nearly the central character of this book. I admire Agatha for trying out different characters, and for paying special attention to those she liked the most, but I also applaud her for, in the end, sticking with the sleuth that her readers loved so much: M. Poirot.

I leave you with this funny observance between Mr. Satterthwaite and Poirot, which answers a question I have always had about Poirot:
"Why do you sometimes speak perfectly good English and at other times not?"
Poirot laughed.
"Ah, I will explain. It is true that I can speak the exact, the idiomatic English. But, my friend, to speak the broken English is an enormous asset. It leads people to despise you. They say, 'A foreigner; he can't even speak English properly.' It is not my policy to terrify people; instead, I invite their gentle ridicule. Also I boast! An Englishman he says often, 'A fellow who thinks as much of himself as that cannot be worth much.' That is the English point of view. It is not at all true. And so, you see, I put people off their guard. Besides," he added, "it has become a habit."
"Dear me," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "Quite the cunning of the serpent, M. Poirot."

Quite cunning, indeed.

-A.