Various Hercule Poirot mysteries, Agatha Christie, 1920 to 1933

Rating: 5/5

It had been a while since I had read an Agatha Christie and with some trepidation (often, I've had bad experiences while revisiting things that I had enjoyed when much younger), I picked up the first of the Hercule Poirot (for me, Agatha Christie equates to Hercule Poirot) books, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. To my great surprise, I found that the joy of reading a Christie remains unabated -- I still find her books well-written, the plots well-fleshed out, Hercule Poirot still as clever as ever and overall, her books remain page-turners. I ended up reading three more of Poirot's early mysteries -- The Murder on the Links (#2), Peril at End House (#8), and Lord Edgware Dies (#9), all within a span of 12 days.

If I had to rank these four books in order, it would be Styles, Edgware, Links and End House. I have a fondness for Styles for it introduces Poirot. In this, he investigates the murder of an old, rich, and autocratic woman, who recently married a man 20 years her junior. In Edgware, a beautiful actress wants to get rid of her husband so that she can marry another, and sure enough, he is found dead. Links has the usual elements of a Poirot story -- a dead millionaire and several suspects including his wife, son and a mistress. An added bonus is that Hastings (the Watson to Poirot's Holmes) meets his future wife in this book. End House is slightly different in the sense that Poirot is trying to prevent the murder of a young girl who has had some close shaves in the recent path. For me, this was the most predictable of the four books.

An element of the Poirot books that I really love is the end denouement in which Poirot gathers all the characters of the story and reveals the identity of the murderer, after detailing out his thought process. Not all his books have this, and I prefer those that do. This style of denoument was actually an act of serendipity. In Styles, Christie had initially written a different climatic scene where Poirot reveals the murderer's identity in a courtroom. Her publisher protested that such an event was implausible, forcing Christie to rewrite the end. The legions of Poirot fans should be grateful to this publisher! As a bonus in the Styles edition that I read, the original courtroom climax is included as an appendix. Besides this aspect, all the Poirot books are cleverly plotted, have multiple suspects, enough red herrings and directs the reader's suspicions from one character to another through the book.   

The only complaint, if any, is that Christie keeps some important plot elements from the reader and only Hercule Poirot is aware of those. But then I am okay with this -- when I read the books, I enjoy the flow of the plot and do not necessarily attempt to play detective.

Pros: Cleverly plotted, page-turner, the usual denouement and of course, the inimitable Hercule Poirot

Cons: Some important plot elements are kept from the reader