And Now His Watch Is Over: Curtain | 1975 [SPOILERS]

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"I should have known.

I should have foreseen...

'Cher ami!' Poirot had said to me as I left the room.

They were the last words I was ever to hear him say." 

-Captain Arthur Hastings, Curtain, p. 237

The Sum of It:
My dear friends, I have come to my final Agatha Christie book for this year. As if that in and of itself wasn't slightly emotional enough, I had forgotten that something rather jarring happens in this particular novel.

FRIENDLY REMINDER THIS POST DOES INCLUDE SPOILERS!

Captain Hastings has returned to Styles. Yes, Styles! Remember where the Poirot/Hastings bromance first started wayyyy back in the day when Agatha was just a cool dispensary gal who wanted to try her hand at writing a murder by poison book? Hastings and Poirot are still old friends, and yet also literally getting on in years. Styles has been turned into a sort of boarding house/country hotel where Poirot has taken up residence. Hastings arrives to visit and is quite startled by how Poirot's health has deteriorated. In place of Poirot's faithful manservant, Georges, he now has a quasi nurse named Curtiss who has to carry the poor feeble Belgian detective around - #poorestPoirot! And also #poorestHastings because his wife has passed away and his daughter, Judith, who is also residing at Styles (more on that shortly) is kind of a jerk to him (YOUR DAD IS SWEET HASTINGS, BE GRATEFUL PLZ!)

Poirot is delighted to have Hastings around once again so they can do what they do best: solve crime! Poirot lays before Hastings a series of deaths that all seem a bit odd. In each case there was a clear murderer with a motive...and yet, also in each case a certain individual, "X" to Poirot, was either acquainted with someone involved, or was in the area at the time of the crime. And this "X" was now at Styles! Poirot is CERTAIN someone is meant to be murdered and is determined to stop this "X" once and for all!

Styles is once again full of characters only Agatha Christie can do justice. There is a retired military man painfully embarrassed by his nagging wife, an unattractive scientist and his mysteriously ill wife, Hastings' daughter, Judith, who won't stop flirting with a man her father thinks is TROUBLE, and, of course, Hastings himself, somewhat subdued in his later years, and yet never too old to have his head turned by a woman with auburn hair.

The YOA Treatment:
So, elephant in the room and #spoiler, Poirot dies in this book. I remember reading this novel back when I was a teenager and thinking "well good grief, this one seems a bit slow" and then finding myself at the end of chapter 17 and bursting into tears. I don't even think I finished the remaining chapters. I barely could this time around!

When reporting on the death of his dearest friend, Hastings says:
"I don't want to write about it at all. I want, you see, to think about it as little as possible. Hercule Poirot was dead - and with him died a good part of Arthur Hastings."

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Nearly as heartbreaking as those lines is David Suchet's description of his feelings on playing the death scene of Hercule Poirot in the television adaptation:

"I am about to breathe my last as Agatha Christie's idiosyncratic Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, who has been a part of my life as an actor for almost a quarter of a century...it is, quite simply, one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.
This is the death of a dear friend. For years it has been Poirot and me, and to lose him is a pain almost beyond imagining." -Poirot and Me

(I'M NOT CRYING, YOU'RE CRYING!)

Poirot is and always will be my first Agatha Christie love. He was my gateway into her vast wealth of delicious mysteries. Curtain serves as a fitting farewell for Hercule Poirot. Though this book was published right before Agatha's death, she wrote it in the 1940s, spiriting the manuscript away to be kept top secret until the time was right to off her irksome little Belgian. Curtain has all the delightful hallmarks of Christie in her prime. Though you do spend several chapters wishing Hastings would stop just chatting people up and make something happen (!!), you can't help but gasp at her nearly-Roger-Ackroyd-esque conclusion.

Farewell, cher ami Poirot: I am so happy to have ended this Year of Agatha with your final chapter.

-A.

PS: *what is dead may never die* #themonogrammurders #closedcasket

When You Want to Learn More About Agatha: Supplemental Read Recommendations!

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"If she [Agatha Christie] is read by miners, shop assistants, and old age pensioners, equally she is read…by academics, politicians, scientists and artists. They would feel ashamed to sit on a train reading a Tarzan book; they would hide a James Bond inside a copy of the Guardian; but they wouldn't think twice about opening up a Christie." -A Talent to Deceive, p. 4

Happy Thursday, dear readers!

One of our readers, NYC Book Owl, asked if we would do a post about some of our favorite supplemental Agatha reads. One of the things we have loved about our Year of Agatha project has been learning more about the Queen of Crime through her own words as well as through the words of other fans who have spent a great deal of time studying her writings (#GOALZ). So, in this post you'll find some of our recommendations for those who might be interested in diving deeper into the world and life of Agatha Christie!

1) An Autobiography by Agatha Christie
This list should absolutely start with Agatha's own amazing autobiography in which she tells some great stories not only about growing up, experiences and people that influenced her writings, and how she felt about her success.

2) Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie
Agatha describes this book as basically her way of blanket-ly answering all the questions she got from friends and fans about her time working with her archaeologist hubby, Max, on his digs in Syria. We can just imagine some second cousin thrice removed asking her at Christmas "Oh hey what's it like living in Syria??" and Agatha reaching into her bag and just handing her a copy of this book. Since so many of her stories were inspired by her travels in the Middle East and her experiences on digs, this is a neat window into that part of her life.

3) Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks by John Curran
We are kind of obsessed with John Curran. Mostly in a OMG YOU ARE SUCH AN AWESOME AGATHA NERD JUST LIKE US kind of way. Curran got to live every Agatha fan's dream and go through her handwritten notes to learn more about how she planned the novels we all love so much. We love this insight into her work, and will certainly be consulting it as we get into phase 2 of The Year of Agatha: writing our own Christie-style mystery!

4) The Life and Times of Miss Jane Marple by Anne Hart
This is a "biography" of Miss Marple using all the clues about her given to us in her novels and other Agatha writings. This is SUCH a fun read because as you go through it you think "oh hey yeah what do we know about Jane Marple as a young woman?! And yes, just how many nieces and nephews does she have??" Anne Hart has also written a similar volume about Hercule Poirot.

5) A Talent to Deceive: An Appreciation of Agatha Christie by Robert Barnard
This is a fantastic read for anyone wanting to get more into the nitty gritty analysis of Agatha Christie. Barnard talks about Agatha Christie's place in the classic fiction genre, her strategies for deception, and how her to-this-day mysterious disappearance as a young woman influenced her writing. There is also a section of his one paragraph reviews of each book that are often SO FUNNY they had us laughing out loud!

6) Poirot and Me by David Suchet
This book is truly such a gem, particularly for those of you who (like us!) basically equivocate David Suchet with Hercule Poirot. This is a delightful account of David Suchet's more than 20 years of playing Poirot, and offers a glimpse into the emotional connection he has with the character and his personal stories from filming the show.

7) Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie by Anne Martinetti, Guillaume Lebeau, and Alexandre Franc
Finally, although this graphic novel could be seen as over-simplifying Agatha Christie's history, it is a cute, quick overview of her life and worth it just for the pictures alone!

Have any of you read a book from this list? What are some that we missed? We are always on the lookout for more Agatha learning :)

-A. & E.

Wuff, Wuff!: Dumb Witness | 1937

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"'Oh Poirot,' I cried. 'It can't be natural death! It's got to be murder!'

'Oh la la, we seem to have changed places, you and I.'" 

Dumb Witness, p. 220

The Sum of It:

Our story this week begins (quite literally!) with a death: that of Ms. Emily Arundell. Emily Arundell is a secretly-uber-wealthy spinster woman with many needy nieces and nephews, all of whom decide Easter weekend is the perfect time for a family reunion at which to beg Aunt Emily for some of her money. During said holiday weekend, Emily falls down the stairs in the nighttime, an incident which is unfortunately blamed on her darling dog Bob and his allegedly left upon the stairs ball! But is that really what happened? Ms. Arundell doesn't think so and writes a letter to Poirot about her concerns, a letter which she hides from her nosy maidservants tucked away in her writing-case (#snailmail). ALAS, she turns up dead some weeks later and her maidservant mournfully finds the unsent letter and says "Oh I'll be a good servant and send this for my poor dead mistress" (of course not knowing who Poirot is and why Emily Arundell sent him a letter). Poirot receives said letter many weeks after Ms. Arundell initially writes it, a fact which intrigues him instantly.

Poirot and Hastings, under the guise of being a Mr. Parotti & Plus One who are alternately researching for a book on the super en vogue topic of lesser known generals in the Indian Munity (#someonesgottadoit), looking to buy some real estate in the countryside, or having vague liver diseases, scour the small village of Market Basing for clues of the cause of Emily Arundel's eventual demise. They finally dispense with the theatrics (after Hastings starts feeling bad about the web of lies and also people find out it's THE Hercule Poirot and put two and two together) and investigate the case FOR REALZ. After many interviews with Emily Arundell's frankly super shady relatives Theresa, Charles, and Bella (#moneygrubbers), as well as her household staff, occult-loving neighbors, and recently-ish acquired paid companion (and soul recipient of Emily's VAST fortune), Miss Lawson, Poirot and Hastings sit back and think about the facts they have gathered and try to piece together whether they are dealing with a natural liver-failure death or #MURDER.

The YOA Treatment:

We were a bit saddened to realize that Dumb Witness is the penultimate Poirot book featuring Hastings as a narrator/sidekick/BFF! As always, their banter is really terrific in this book. Here are some of our favorite moments:

"Dear me," I complained. "There is something about this place that makes me feel extremely conspicuous. As for you, Poirot, you look positively exotic."

"You think it is noticed that I am a foreigner—yes?"

"The fact cries aloud to heaven," I assured him.

"And yet my clothes are made by an English tailor," mused Poirot.

(Chapter 6)

"Poirot," I said. "Have we got to listen at doors?"

"Calm yourself, my friend. It was only I who listened! It was not you who put your ear to the crack. On the contrary, you stood bolt upright like a soldier."

(Chapter 15)

We also enjoyed seeing Agatha's love for dogs shine from her adorable character, Bob the dog. Agatha has sprinkled a bit of Bob "dialogue" throughout the book and the result is so charming that even anti-pet Poirot is won over:

"Good watchdog, aren't I? he seemed to be saying. "Don't mind me! This is just my fun! My duty too, of course. Just have to let 'em known there's a dog about the place! Deadly dull morning. Quite a blessing to have something to do. Coming into our place? Hope so. It's durned dull. I could do with a little conversation."

"Hullo, old man," I said and shoved forward a fist.

Craning his neck through the railings he sniffed suspiciously, then gently wagged his tail, uttering a few, short, staccato barks.

"Not been properly introduced, of course, have to keep this up! But I see you know the proper advances to make."

"Good old boy," I said.

"Wuff," said the terrier amiably.

(Chapter 6)

David Suchet also writes in his memoir, Poirot and Me, about being "captivated" by Bob the dog on the set of the film Dumb Witness (shown in photo below played by the adorable terrier named Snubby!)

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Overall, we came away from Dumb Witness appreciating it as a rather classic-feeling Christie. While the plot and character development didn't really stand out, the whimsical Bob and delightful Poirot/Hastings dynamic we know and love made for an enjoyable read.

-A. & E.

Death by Fish Paste?: Sad Cypress | 1940

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"One does not practice detection with a textbook! One uses one's natural intelligence." -Hercule Poirot, Sad Cypress, p. 166

The Sum of It:
We begin this week's first book, Sad Cypress, in the company engaged-to-be-married cousins (#cousinlove #ohlala) Elinor Carlisle and Roddy Welman. The pair is slightly distressed because they have received an anonymous letter indicating a mysterious someone is nosing their way into their very sick aunt's favor. As it is likely that their aunt will die soon, they should be, the letter says, a bit concerned about the large inheritance they will inherit from said ill aunt. Elinor and Roddy don't really think much of the letter, but decide they should pay a visit to Aunt Laura anyway. Off they go, and find a house full of nurses and doctors and housekeepers and a childhood friend of theirs, Mary Gerard, who is all grown up now and has become very attractive. Roddy, not necessarily being Britain's best and brightest to begin with, turns into a complete goob, becomes entranced by lovely Mary, and basically forgets he has a cousin fiancee at all. Elinor tries to push aside the drama of brazenly unfaithful Roddy and focus on dying Aunt Laura who does, in fact, die like right away, but does so WITHOUT A WILL. So Elinor inherits all, but wins the award for Being the Bigger Person, and agrees to give fiancee-thief Mary Gerard a chunk of cash because Aunt Laura liked her so much. Elinor and Roddy break up and Elinor decides to clean out Aunt Laura's house and have one last quick tea party of fish paste sandwiches with Mary Gerard and one of her Aunt's former nurses, Nurse Hopkins. At the end of the tea party, who turns up dead? MARY GERARD! Since they all ate the same things at #deadlyteaparty, the police surmise that Elinor must have, in a jealous rage, secretly put poison in Mary's favorite sandwich paste, ensuring her demise.

Everyone assumes that Elinor is super guilty, except darling Dr. Peter Lord, who has a tiny bit of a crush on Elinor and enlists the help of Hercule Poirot to find the truth! Note, as Poirot tells Dr. Lord to on several occasions, that might mean confirming Elinor's guilt. Poirot embarks on his usual Interview Tour of all those involved, and does in fact, find the truth. The book is in three parts, the first all the events surrounding Aunt Laura and Mary Gerard's deaths, the second part focusing on Poirot's investigation, and the third is from the perspective of Elinor Carlisle during her trial for murder. The third part is particularly interesting, because it is another instance (like Witness for the Prosecution) where Agatha shows her compelling skillz for courtroom drama!

Agatha is said to have thought this book would have been better without Poirot. I highly disagree. I enjoyed this book immensely, and it made complete sense to have Poirot as the investigating mind to prove Elinor Carlisle guilty or not guilty, because this is just the kind of case he would enjoy solving.

The YOA Treatment:
One of the side Agatha Christie books we are reading this year is Poirot and Me by David Suchet. I highly recommend this book for any Agatha lovers (particularly those who enjoy the television adaptations as well!) because David Suchet gives such delightful insight into the process of becoming an on-screen Poirot for nearly 25 years. One particular story stood out to me from his memories in his chapter about filming Sad Cypress. Suchet talks about visiting a local hospice while filming and visiting many of the elderly residents in costume (and character!) of Poirot, most of whom were huge Poirot fans! (#preciousmoment #GodblessDavidSuchet) Suchet was still getting used to being famous for being Poirot, but his iconic-ness didn't totally hit him until a moment that happened around the same time. He was on the Tube in London and a nun came hurrying up to him, yelling "It's Poirot!" He was slightly mortified at first, but the nun went on. I'll let him tell the rest:

The nun explained to me that she had just 'come out of silence' and could not wait to express her joy at seeing me. She then went on to tell the entire carriage, pretty much at the top of her voice, that she and the other nuns at her convent liked to watch Poirot after dark on Sunday evenings, even though the rules of the convent did not really allow them to do so.
'It is one of our forbidden secrets,' she chortled, with a broad smile on her face. 'It is quite wonderful.'
...Looking back, it serves to remind me just how lucky I am to have so many different kinds of fans around the world, all of whom seemed thrilled by Poirot.

Thrilled by Poirot! We couldn't agree more.

-A.