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A review by pammyj1883
Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie
4.0
Look, I know pretty much nothing about bridge, but it doesn’t stop this book from being really quite delightful. Christie, in rare form, has a preface to this books – where she talks about wanting to dig in with the psychology of characters in this one, and that some people might like it, while others (like Hastings!) would find it boring. I didn’t find it boring at all, and was really hooked for a majority of the novel.
The premise is kind of fascinating - a gentleman named Shaitana (is he gay or just the devil, you decide) thinks it would be a fun little game to invite four ‘sleuths’ and four ‘murders’ over for dinner. He mentions this to our dear Hercule Poirot, who of course gets invited, but Poirot warns Shaitana that playing with people can be a dangerous game.
And of course it is!
By the end of the night, Shaitana is dead, and we have four suspects who all could be quite dangerous! And, of course, the rest of the novel is spent digging into the backstories of these characters, and looking at the psychology of how and why and even if these characters not only murdered Shaitana - but if they murdered before.
And I think the whole thing really works. I think limiting the story to only four suspects and digging into who they are is a fascinating way to explore the mystery. The first fifty or so pages, when they’ve just found the murder is really, very captivating, and I almost wish the whole novel was on one night, where each of the sleuths try to figure out who did it.
One of the aspects that I like about this book is that it has a sense of humor. Not only is Poirot (who is there from the beginning) endearingly amusing, but we get our first real introduction to Ariadne Oliver - a fourth wall breaking mystery writer who is clearly an outlet for Christie to vent her frustrations about being a writer - and she’s absolutely delightful.
I do think the last fifty pages or so goes off the rails a little. And while the solution is clever and makes sense with everything that’s presented, I do wonder if Christie felt like she needed to pad the second half a little.
Overall, it’s an excellent read - and very much one that I’d recommend.
The premise is kind of fascinating - a gentleman named Shaitana (is he gay or just the devil, you decide) thinks it would be a fun little game to invite four ‘sleuths’ and four ‘murders’ over for dinner. He mentions this to our dear Hercule Poirot, who of course gets invited, but Poirot warns Shaitana that playing with people can be a dangerous game.
And of course it is!
By the end of the night, Shaitana is dead, and we have four suspects who all could be quite dangerous! And, of course, the rest of the novel is spent digging into the backstories of these characters, and looking at the psychology of how and why and even if these characters not only murdered Shaitana - but if they murdered before.
And I think the whole thing really works. I think limiting the story to only four suspects and digging into who they are is a fascinating way to explore the mystery. The first fifty or so pages, when they’ve just found the murder is really, very captivating, and I almost wish the whole novel was on one night, where each of the sleuths try to figure out who did it.
One of the aspects that I like about this book is that it has a sense of humor. Not only is Poirot (who is there from the beginning) endearingly amusing, but we get our first real introduction to Ariadne Oliver - a fourth wall breaking mystery writer who is clearly an outlet for Christie to vent her frustrations about being a writer - and she’s absolutely delightful.
I do think the last fifty pages or so goes off the rails a little. And while the solution is clever and makes sense with everything that’s presented, I do wonder if Christie felt like she needed to pad the second half a little.
Overall, it’s an excellent read - and very much one that I’d recommend.