November Book Report - Agatha Christie “Cards on the Table", a Hercule Poirot Mystery © 1936

 This month not only did I listen to a book by Agatha Christie, but it is available as an episode of the TV series Poirot starring David Suchet, so I watched it, too.

The title of this book, Cards on the Table, refers not only to the idiom of putting ones cards on the table (meaning to be open and honest about something) but to a game of bridge. A mysterious man who likes to dress like Mephistopheles, Mr. Shaitana, decides to hold a dinner party where he invites four sleuths, including Hercule Poirot and his occasional companion Ariadne Oliver (portrayed on the series by Zoe Wanamaker), and four criminals. Mr. Shaitana has learned through gossip that the four criminals he has invited are, in fact, murderers who have never been suspected of the murders they have committed.

After the meal, during which Mr. Shaitana baits the murderers with hints about the murders he knows about, the dinner guests break into two groups for bridge, with Mr. Shaitana sitting the game out by the fire. The murderers play their game in the room with Mr. Shaitana while the sleuths are in the next room for their game. Sometime during the course of the night, Mr. Shaitana is murdered. The sleuths have been out of the room the whole time, so it falls on them to learn the dark secrets held by the murderers and determine which one of them was able to murder Mr. Shaitana, without the others noticing.

I made the mistake of watching the episode before I finished listening to the book. This lessened my enthusiasm to finish listening to the book, but I did. There are some notable differences between the book and the show, the main one being that on the TV series Mr. Shaitana is a hobby photographer who has taken pictures of most of the murderers (maybe all, I forget) and the police detective who is in the sleuth group. There are no photographs of importance in the novel. This was added entirely for the TV show.

Two of the characters, Anne Meredith (murderer) and Superintendent Battle (sleuth), are changed from the novel as well, with Anne Meredith being more sympathetic and Battle being thrown into the suspect category.

There are other changes to characters, but not as notable to the story revolving around them. I will say that I adore Zoe Wanamaker’s performance as Ariadne Oliver on this and other episodes of the TV series, and would love to see a spinoff series of Ariadne Oliver solving crimes. Ariadne is much more likeable on the show than in the book.

Up until the very end, I wondered if the TV show had also changed the identity of the murderer, but it didn’t. The novel just makes a very convincing case for a different character which the TV show didn’t follow through with in the same way. The murderer also has his motive heightened for his original murder in the TV series. I’m still not sure from the novel why he did his original murder. If I heard the reason, I have forgotten it.

The audiobook was, like with the other Christie novel I listened to, read by Hugh Fraser. He is excellent at this and makes the characters come to life, doing all sort of accents and pitches with his voice. I enjoyed this story more than the last Christie one and infinitely more than the mystery from last month.

Somewhere (which means on Facebook or Twitter) I recently read about how mystery novels differ from other stories in that the detectives are not expected to have any character growth over their series of stories. They are only expected to be interesting and competent in solving mysteries. It got me thinking about Poirot, Miss Marple, Agatha Raison, Jessica Fletcher, Columbo and others. True. They don’t grow and change as people. They solve crimes and they do it the same way, which is what the audience finds so satisfying. They start off as interesting characters and the reader/viewer wants to learn more about them, not to see them grow and change. Anyway, I thought that was interesting and worth pondering.

Anyway, this month’s book is one of the better ones from the year. Oh, and I should mention that I basically know how to play bridge (my dad never let anyone else keep score, so I can’t do it), so that part of the plot wasn’t confusing for me. It might be for you if you are not familiar with bridge at all.

 

October Book Report - The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal by Lilian Jackson Braun

 

Since I enjoy a good mystery, I decided to try out one of the “cat who” series books by Lilian Jackson Braun. I had no idea how to select a “good” book from the series, so I just picked one that had a good rating on Audible.

The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal was published in 1991, something I didn’t realize until just now. The first “cat who” book was published in 1966 and the one I read was the 12^th in the series. There was a big gap between the first three novels and the next, from 1968 to 1986. For some reason, probably because I’ve spent so much time with Agatha Christie in the past two months, as I listened to this book I imagined it was set in a much more distant past than the 1990s. The setting of a small town helped with that illusion. I don’t recall there being any talk of computers or mobile phones. The internet wasn’t really a thing yet and mobile phones didn’t really become a regular thing until the late 1990s. As a result, it didn’t matter that I pictured the story being in “the past,” like anywhere between 1950 and 1970.

I don’t know what I expected of the titular cat, but I was a little disappointed in the cats and their involvement in the crime solving. I know cats can’t solve crime, but the little hype I had heard about these novels led me to believe the cats would be more integral.

Once again, I listened to this story and didn’t read it. It was read to me by George Guidall. I did not enjoy his narration. The lead character in the story, Qwill, is a man. The reading for the men in the story was fine. It was each time the narrator had to voice a woman that I would drop out of the story. He voiced all the women as snippy and short, and I can’t believe they would all have been written that way.

By this time in the continuing story of Qwill, he has two cats, not just one. The original cat Koko is still with him, but now has a companion Yum Yum. The story reminded me in many ways of Murder, She Wrote. It is set in a small town and the focus is just as much on the quirky cast of characters as it is on the murder which has taken place. Perhaps after reading several books I might be more invested in the characters, but with just one I didn’t find them all that likeable.

It isn’t even worth talking too much about the plot, which was fine but not compelling. I’m not saying to avoid the series, but this one wasn’t that great and certainly not the best introduction to the series. I don’t think all of the titles were available on Audible, which limited my options when picking which one to listen to. And some of the comments indicated that on the 2 for 1 offers on Audible the books were abridged versions, which I didn’t want.

Anyway, another one done and two more to go for my year of books!

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie - September Book Report

 If there’s one thing I love, it’s a cozy mystery -- British preferred. I have seen every episode of Murder, She Wrote several times. I can watch Columbo episodes again and again. Agatha Raisin? Loved it. I’ve seen all of Poirot, Father Brown, Miss Fisher, Shakespeare & Hathaway, Rosemary & Thyme, Queens of Mystery and others. Not all of them work for me, but many do. So for my next book, I decided to not go for another memoir but to try a mystery novel instead.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a Poirot story by Agatha Christie, published in 1926. I got the audiobook version, read by Hugh Fraser, who happens to play Captain Hastings on Poirot. He did a terrific job of reading/performing this story, including doing a good Poirot voice.

A couple of things stuck out to me in this novel. First, I must have read it before. Actually read it. I knew who the murderer was almost immediately. I’ve only read maybe three Agatha Christie novels, millions of years ago, so I thought it would be unlikely that I would select an audiobook of one of those that I’ve read, but that’s what happened.

If you’ve ever read any Agatha Christie, then you will know that guessing the murderer is nearly impossible. She withholds vital information until the very end, or introduces a new character at the very end. One of my favorite movies, Murder by Death, has a speech near the end about the frustration of reading stories by a writer like Christie. I found a copy of the speech online, which might not be accurate, but you get the point:

“You've tricked and fooled your readers for years. You've tortured us all with surprise endings that made no sense. You've introduced characters in the last five pages that were never in the book before. You've withheld clues and information that made it impossible for us to guess who did it. But now, the tables are turned. Millions of angry mystery readers are now getting their revenge. When the world learns I've outsmarted you, they'll be selling your $1.95 books for twelve cents.” -- Lionel Twain

That sums up my experience. So when I watch an episode of Poirot or Marple, I don’t try to figure out who did it. That is an impossible task. I just enjoy seeing the detective at work. Christie is a good writer and reading or listening to her work is enjoyable.

The second thing that stuck out to me was how easy her stories are to adapt to TVs and movies, which is probably why they remain so popular. The novel sounded almost like someone reading a screenplay. The dialogue was complete. The characters were complete. The locations were visual and the story was engaging.

I tried to find the TV version of this story, but for some reason it isn’t available on the subscription services I have, and I don’t want to pay extra just to watch it. Maybe I’ll change my mind, but for now that’s where I’m at.

Overall, this was a great title to listen to while pulling up crabgrass in my yard, and I’m leaving the door open to listening to more stories written by Agatha Christie.