Poirot Retrospective #5: The Big Four

 

Poirot Retrospective #5: The Big Four

Well, it's come to this... A truly awful Poirot novel.

I read some brief reviews that said "this is more of a spy novel than a Poirot mystery," and that is (unfortunately) true. But it's a bad spy novel. And a worse Poirot mystery.

This book was badly written, the plot was so threadbare and dead-on-arrival it could not even be called "thin," it had very unfortunate racist caricatures of Asians throughout, and - worst all perhaps - it was basically like a bad cartoon, a parody of everything that makes Poirot (and Christie generally) fun to read. It very honestly read like a third-rate pulp novel published in a penny dreadful with a title like Exciting Tales or Stories of Adventure.

The basic idea: four supervillains have come together in a plot to rule the world: a "mandarin" (horrid Chinese stereotype recalling Fu Manchu), a French scientist woman "with a nun's face" who has "harnessed atomic power and threatens every nation with her blasts of energy!", an American "soap tycoon" (!!!) named Abe Rylance, and - weirdest of all - a British actor who had all his teeth pulled so he could assume any face possible. What?!

In a series of ridiculous circumstances, Poirot is alerted to the existence of The Big Four and begins working against them. If you were hoping for Holmes vs Moriarty, prepare for extreme disappointment. Eventually, of course Poirot and Hastings prevail, but nothing adds up, nothing makes sense, and the climax of the story is atrociously written. Everything seems played for a farce. I wondered multiple times if this was written on a dare.

It's all told in a style that a comic book would find embarrassing: "The Chinaman's cunning knew no bounds - but this time Poirot was prepared! He turned to Hastings and said "Do not worry my friend, for the Eastern mind is not ready for such plans as I have laid. No one shall conquer Hercules Poirot! No, not anyone!!"

Ugh. UGH. UGGGGGHHHH.

The only - ONLY - good point in this is when Poirot pretends to be his own twin brother named Achille (ha!), a rare moment of self-parody by the famously fussy detective.