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3.29 AVERAGE
3.29 AVERAGE
this book is certainly a diversion from the regular murder mystery format and as such i didn’t love it as much as her other works
For me to be disappointed with an Agatha Christie novel is saying a lot. The Big Four is the fifth book in the Hercule Poirot series that Agatha Christie wrote. I finished with all of the Miss Marple books and hope to finish all of the Poirot books in the order they should be read by next year.
This book was probably the toughest Christie book for me to finish. At first, I really did like the plot of this book. We have Hercule Poirot and Hastings back together again investigating the mysterious "Big Four". When the novel begins the gang was trying to lure Hercule Poirot out of the country so they could go about doing their machinations unimpeded. Of course Hercule Poirot sees through this (eventually) and he starts his investigation of the mysterious syndicate.
Unlike with previous Christie novels there is no clever gotcha moment with Hercule reasoning out who dun it. Earlier on Hercule figures out the identities of the 'Big Four'. This novel is just Hercule trying to catch one of them in the act in order to bring down the whole group.
This novel takes place over the course of at least 7-8 months. At one point in the story Hercule says to Hastings he has been back in London for six months and doesn't his wife miss him. I had to wonder that too.
For every step closer that Hercule gets to naming the 'Big Four' he is pushed back two steps. He is at times disbelieved by those in Scotland Yard and the UK government since it seems so surreal that four people would go about murdering and stealing and doing their best to bring the world government to their knees. That was the hardest part for me to swallow. How did these four people meet? Did they all decide yes anarchy is the way to go? You do find out why possibly number 3 wants the world brought to its knees and even number 1. However, number 2 and 4 make no sense and it would have been nice to gain some understanding of this group's mindset instead of yes we're evil.
During the course of the story we have Hercule becoming obsessed with number 4 of the syndicate and that is who most of the story focuses on. We do have interactions with number 2 and 3 but not number 1.
For some reason number 4 though knowing it is dangerous cannot help going after Hercule Poirot. Hercule tries to reason that all out with Hastings, but honestly it makes no sense.
When we do get to the final denouement the book ends with a whimper. It does help to know that this novel initially started off as eleven short stories which does show when you start going from chapter to chapter since it appears that sometimes we readers are missing key information.
Though it is important to read this novel in order to gain understanding in later books to plots or characters referenced from this one I would just recommend skimming it or borrowing it from the library. This is definitely not a top shelf Christie novel in my humble opinion. If you want to read a truly great Poirot novel I would stick with "Murder on the Orient Express" and "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd".
This book was probably the toughest Christie book for me to finish. At first, I really did like the plot of this book. We have Hercule Poirot and Hastings back together again investigating the mysterious "Big Four". When the novel begins the gang was trying to lure Hercule Poirot out of the country so they could go about doing their machinations unimpeded. Of course Hercule Poirot sees through this (eventually) and he starts his investigation of the mysterious syndicate.
Unlike with previous Christie novels there is no clever gotcha moment with Hercule reasoning out who dun it. Earlier on Hercule figures out the identities of the 'Big Four'. This novel is just Hercule trying to catch one of them in the act in order to bring down the whole group.
This novel takes place over the course of at least 7-8 months. At one point in the story Hercule says to Hastings he has been back in London for six months and doesn't his wife miss him. I had to wonder that too.
For every step closer that Hercule gets to naming the 'Big Four' he is pushed back two steps. He is at times disbelieved by those in Scotland Yard and the UK government since it seems so surreal that four people would go about murdering and stealing and doing their best to bring the world government to their knees. That was the hardest part for me to swallow. How did these four people meet? Did they all decide yes anarchy is the way to go? You do find out why possibly number 3 wants the world brought to its knees and even number 1. However, number 2 and 4 make no sense and it would have been nice to gain some understanding of this group's mindset instead of yes we're evil.
During the course of the story we have Hercule becoming obsessed with number 4 of the syndicate and that is who most of the story focuses on. We do have interactions with number 2 and 3 but not number 1.
For some reason number 4 though knowing it is dangerous cannot help going after Hercule Poirot. Hercule tries to reason that all out with Hastings, but honestly it makes no sense.
When we do get to the final denouement the book ends with a whimper. It does help to know that this novel initially started off as eleven short stories which does show when you start going from chapter to chapter since it appears that sometimes we readers are missing key information.
Though it is important to read this novel in order to gain understanding in later books to plots or characters referenced from this one I would just recommend skimming it or borrowing it from the library. This is definitely not a top shelf Christie novel in my humble opinion. If you want to read a truly great Poirot novel I would stick with "Murder on the Orient Express" and "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd".
For a Poirot case, this is a bit of an odd ball. Rather than one overarching mystery, the novel focuses on a series of tiny ones, the various misdeeds of a league of supervillains called "The Big Four". Poirot spends the book chasing down these criminals in a (supposedly dangerous) game of cat and mouse. I don't enjoy these sweeping "big crime" installments quite as much as the more subtle and detailed character cases Christie is known for. It never truly feels like there is real danger to the characters, and there's not space to develop any one of the mysteries to the point that one particularly cares about the outcome.
That said, I continually find the dynamic between Hastings and Poirot to be delightful.
That said, I continually find the dynamic between Hastings and Poirot to be delightful.
This... This is the silliest and most racist Poirot I've ever read. I'd say Christie read one too many Ian Flemings but they hadn't been written yet. I think I'm just gonna pretend Poirot let Hastings make one up.
Really disjointed. Much of the plot appeared to be formed from previous writings.
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Big four had some unique elements that aren’t typical to Christie’s writing style. That said, Big Four is not your typical Agatha Christie whodunit. If you don’t enter the book expecting a whodunit, you will be delighted by the high stakes, crime syndicate thriller that it is. Not nearly as complete as other Christie books, it read more choppy than usual, making the book more challenging to track with.
I enjoyed the Big Four and hope you do too! There’s a reason Agatha Christie’s sold the number of books that she has, and her writing is just about always purposefully and intricately crafted.
I enjoyed the Big Four and hope you do too! There’s a reason Agatha Christie’s sold the number of books that she has, and her writing is just about always purposefully and intricately crafted.
adventurous
emotional
funny
informative
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Tedious. Unbelievably tedious. Even Hugh Fraser's outstanding narration couldn't break the tedium.
Notes I took while listening to it:
1. Marconigrams!
2. Absolutely bizarre that Hastings spends months away from his wife, doesn't mention her all that time, and, furthermore, is "always looking for romance" as Poirot says.
3. UGH if you can’t play chess, why issue a challenge and insist upon it? That makes zero sense
4. So tedious. I can't wait for it to be over.
5. Hastings' continued neglect of his wife is unfathomable. Absolutely bizarre.
6. The constant putting down of Hastings is getting so old.
The evil Chinese mastermind - was that an obsession back in the day?
All these people with plot armour, knowing exactly what's coming and preparing ahead of time. Uuuugggghhh I'm so tired of it.
I'm going to have to take a break from Christie books. They're so dang boring it takes stubborn determination to get through them. I did have a plan to read through every single one of them one after the other, but I'm only up to 1927 and I don't know how much more I can take.
Ok, having said all *that*, she'd just recovered her memory and had separated from her husband. This was a pretty twisty book to write in the midst of all that emotional turmoil. So maybe I should cut her some slack. She was clearly sick to death of Poirot at this point and wanted to kill him off. Shades of Conan Doyle killing off Holmes because he was sick to death of him. Don't blame him. Holmes is really freaking annoying. I absolutely adored Terry Pratchett's diss of him. BUT ANYWAY, I'm veering off the point. Christie wanted nothing more to do with Poirot, but the fans went all Annie Wilkes and insisted on more stories.
Notes I took while listening to it:
1. Marconigrams!
2. Absolutely bizarre that Hastings spends months away from his wife, doesn't mention her all that time, and, furthermore, is "always looking for romance" as Poirot says.
3. UGH if you can’t play chess, why issue a challenge and insist upon it? That makes zero sense
4. So tedious. I can't wait for it to be over.
5. Hastings' continued neglect of his wife is unfathomable. Absolutely bizarre.
6. The constant putting down of Hastings is getting so old.
The evil Chinese mastermind - was that an obsession back in the day?
All these people with plot armour, knowing exactly what's coming and preparing ahead of time. Uuuugggghhh I'm so tired of it.
I'm going to have to take a break from Christie books. They're so dang boring it takes stubborn determination to get through them. I did have a plan to read through every single one of them one after the other, but I'm only up to 1927 and I don't know how much more I can take.
Ok, having said all *that*, she'd just recovered her memory and had separated from her husband. This was a pretty twisty book to write in the midst of all that emotional turmoil. So maybe I should cut her some slack. She was clearly sick to death of Poirot at this point and wanted to kill him off. Shades of Conan Doyle killing off Holmes because he was sick to death of him. Don't blame him. Holmes is really freaking annoying. I absolutely adored Terry Pratchett's diss of him. BUT ANYWAY, I'm veering off the point. Christie wanted nothing more to do with Poirot, but the fans went all Annie Wilkes and insisted on more stories.
Actually not half as bad as I anticipated based on my first failed attempt a few years ago. Going in treating it as a collection of related short stories and ready for something much goofier than usual, this was a fun change of pace.