3.72 AVERAGE

medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
mysterious relaxing medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes

I really enjoy Christie and I enjoyed this book a lot. I think it was really surprising and focused less on Poirot and more on the side characters, which made for a nice change of pace. I would say this is less of a book where you can figure out things yourself and a whole lot of the details are revealed towards the end. It did have a very slow start however and it took almost half of the book for me to get really stuck in.

I really love Christie!

On the whole, I'd say this is one of the better Poirot mysteries, if you don't mind that Poirot doesn't appear until 2/3 of the way through the book. Its two main flaws are common to most of the books in this series: 1) the racism, and 2) the big gathering-of-all-suspects at the end where Poirot explains everything and then the murderer, for no apparent reason except that they just can't stop killing people, tries to kill the person who recognizes them. There's also the problem that it's not at all clear why, in the first chapter, the prince is trying to get his jewels out of the country and who he wants to have them, though you could argue that question is finally answered at the very end of the book. Aside from these issues, though, I liked the book, which had enjoyable characters, red herrings, all the things I like about Christie's mysteries, and I even guessed two key parts of the solution
(that Princess Shiasta was not Princess Shiasta and that Chadwick had killed Vansittart)
. It's not one of the first Poirot books I'd hand someone, but it's not one of the ones I'd shy away from recommending either.

christie’s own racism was on display in this book, and there was very little poirot for a poirot story

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
funny mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Ich fand das Buch ein bisschen zu wirr geschrieben. Einen Großteil der Zeit hatte ich das Gefühl, vorher irgendwas verpasst zu haben und deswegen waren einige komische Sprünge dabei. Poirot hat leider auch nicht gut in das Buch gepasst, denn man hat ihn gar so richtig in Action gesehen. Hier hat er nur mal seine Kontakte spielen lassen und fertig. Aber normalerweise ist das interessante an ihm, dass er richtig im for Psychologie geht und alle Geheimnisse aller Beteiligten herausfindet.
dark mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
adventurous lighthearted mysterious fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No