Poirot Retrospective #19: Hallowe'en Party

 

Poirot Retrospective #19: Hallowe'en Party

This one was a lot of fun! And I'm pleased to say I guessed the murder correctly (from early on!), as well as the motive. That makes 3 out of 20 where I was right on the money, and another 3 where I was partially right. Not great numbers, but acceptable, haha.

This is one of the very last Poirot novels. There are only three more (one being posthumous) after it. It therefore has more of Christie's philosophizing and moralizing than most, and also is very "modern" - the England of the 1960s is prominent, and many characters lament the giant slide in youth culture and English culture generally that has happened since WWII. Christie is not a huge fan of the Labour government.

The plot, in brief: at a Hallowe'en party, a 13 year old girl boasts to a visiting mystery writer that she witnessed a murder. No one seems to believe the girl; but some time during the party, she is murdered, drowned in the bobbing-for-apples bucket (!!!). An exceptionally brutal crime even for Agatha Christie.

The visiting mystery writer is one Ariadne Oliver, a thin stand-in for Christie herself, and we first met her in another Poirot story, Cards on the Table. She is extremely upset and distraught by this killing and calls her old friend Poirot, who is (as he so often is) "retired."

Poirot's morals are offended by this murder and he agrees to investigate. It helps that the local constabulary (this all takes place in a small village about 45 minutes outside London) has worked with Poirot before and gives him unlimited discretion. Poirot begins digging and digging and digging, asking his usual questions, and piercing to the heart of some local crimes that no one had really taken seriously before.

It's a good plot with lots of rich characters. Christie does particularly well with the children, who act and sound like children; she also does a great job with the 60s British slang the kids and teens use. As always, her ear and eye are very sharp indeed.

The notable drawbacks: there aren't a ton of suspects, which really helps the reader figure out who it must have been. And the ending comes a bit rushed, with a rather unrealistic action sequence that wasn't necessary. Perhaps Christie felt like the fast-moving 60s demanded it, I don't know.

There is also a LOT of Christie speaking about how murder has gone from "completely unacceptable" in the 20s and 30s to something that's almost blasé in the 60s. The kids in the book either yawn or get inappropriately excited by the murder of one of their peers: death has been devalued. Only the previous generation seems to see this as a serious transgression that needs immediate correction - which I found interesting.