A review by cocoonofbooks
Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie

4.0

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.