A review by jdcorley
Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie

challenging emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

One of Christie's experiments - four suspects, all supposed to be murderers in their own right - and a crime that any of them could be supposed to have committed.  The book concerns itself with psychology, and the uncovering of the histories of the characters in hopes of finding one whose methods match the immediate death.  The real clue comes about three-quarters of the way through when, back to back, two different people give two different accounts of an event only the two of them were present for.  We never know who was right, if either, and it doesn't matter.  Poirot gains what he needs to know from the lies and mistakes as well as the truth. 

Christie's ending, usually drum-tight, is a little loose here, as if she couldn't quite stop with the "four suspects" routine even as she was eliminating one after another.  And seeing Christie's self-insert Ariadne Oliver is always a treat, a bit of a bumbler and completely full of herself.  Enjoyable enough, and there's nothing much wrong with it, exactly, but one can't help but feel that the experiment was carried on too long, or wasn't well considered in the first place.
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