I really like it. It's interesting and gripping. I read it very quickly. Agatha and Poirot dealing with a serial killer! I'll come to the plot, but first I want to say a few things. Hastings comes to London for a few days from his life in Argentina. Talking about the kind of mystery they'd like to work on together, Poirot gives a nice rendition of what "Cards on the table" will be: imagine a middle-class living-room, four people at a table playing bridge while a fifth sits by the fire. At the end this person is found dead. One of the four killed him while the others were concentrated on the game and didn't notice. :-) Nice.
Another thing is how humanity is still the same after all these years (this book dates 1935). When the first woman is killed, many people gather around her shop out of curiosity, and nobody seems to care about the poor old shopkeeper that got her head smashed. Hastings most of all didn't think it was worth their attention. This is one thing I hate about Hastings (and about people, actually, because he's such a more realistic character than Poirot, of course). He's depicted as a good man, naive, honest and good-hearted, but here and there we see the truth of how snob he is. He is only caring when people are important, rich, or beautiful young women. Working-class people don't matter to him, even less a working-class old woman. Shame on him.
The story is interesting. Poirot receives a letter announcing something will happen at a certain place and date, a sort of challenge, and the right day a woman is found dead. Hastings is bored by her murder and becomes interested only when it is connected to Poirot's letter, and therefore could be the first of a series. Detective Crome is intelligent, a good cop, but too arrogant, full of himself. Another letter comes, this time announcing a different place: the first started with A, this one with B, just like the victims. This time it's Betty Barnard, a pretty but silly girl. Next up is a rich man, Sir Carmichael Clark, and they couldn't even try to prevent it because the letter arrived too late. At this point a group of people joins Poirot in trying to solve the case and prevent any more murders. This group is formed by poor old Ascher's niece, by Betty's boyfriend Donald Fraser and also her sister Megan, and by Sir Clark's brother and heir Franklin, and by beautiful Thora Grey who used to work with Sir Clark but his wife fired her, and is now getting close to the new Sir Clark. Unfortunately there's another murder, but at this point the investigation leads to a man, a travelling salesman, Alexander Bonaparte Cust, who seems the perfect solution; because of his memory losses and headaches he's actually convinced he killed those people, but not Betty, because he has a strong alibi for that night in a man ready, insisting I'd say, to witness and swear to it. Good man, he knew Cust could not have done it since they were together, and was determined to have everybody know.
Poirot believes the alibi, and starts to think that if he didn't do that one, maybe he didn't do the others either. Looking at it in a different way, he unveils the truth. It was not a madman's work, on the contrary a very calculating man had planned a murder, and built up this whole 'series' thing to cover up the only one he cared about. It was Franklin Clark who wanted to inherit his brother's fortune, and had created an alibi and a scapegoat to get away with it, but he couldn't fool Poirot!
I liked it, yes. I don't see why in books Agatha's stories are said to be of the 'Sherlock Holmes' type, because the only similarity is that Hastings is a bit like Watson, but that's it. You can't guess anything there because Holmes sees and understands everything without giving you a chance, while Agatha does. They are different in this. Even here, you can very well guess the truth, because poor Cust wasn't at all the same character that was boldly challenging Poirot in the letters, and because that letter came late: how could they think of a mistake? The killer was very methodic, and had written the precise address twice already, so it did seem rather strange that he would make such a mistake; also, Sir Clark was rich with a very sick wife and a beautiful young girl in the house that in no time could have been his wife and given him children (read heirs) while now Sir Franklin inherits it all and looks like he also might get the beautiful young girl as well. Now, he had motive for a cold-blooded murder! Can I also say 'romantic Agatha strikes again' ? There's a romance forming right in front of us between Megan and Fraser, with a little help from Poirot at the end. I also like the ending, with Cust thanking Poirot and Poirot telling him he's now the most famous man in England and should make a lot of money by selling his story to various papers. I liked when Cust said that with the money he could also give a wedding present to a good girl: Lily, that when her boyfriend told the police about his suspicions on Cust, she phoned the man to warn him of the police arrival, because she never really believed he could have done those horrible things. That was nice. In movies they always fail to give secondary characters any recognition of value, it was nice to see that Cust (and Agatha) still remembered Lily and thought of thanking her :-)
In Italy: La serie infernale
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