Agatha Christie mystery is sure to bring out my sleuthing side, The Hercule Poirot series serves to challenge me on a regular basis, forcing me to think outside the box and use my “little grey cells” repeatedly, While not the best of Christies pieces in this series, the story is strong and flows well, making it an entertaining piece to pass the time,
The town is abuzz when Sir Charles Cartwright assembles a small dinner party at his home, The onetime leading start of Londons theatre community, Cartwright is sure to make all the effort to entertain his guests in Cornwell, Especially with the guest list he has in mind,
The assembled thirteen are from a number of professions, making the gathering all the more exciting, While some would presume the number of guests will prove unlucky, it is not until Reverend Stephen Babbington chokes on his cocktail and dies that things take a true turn.
After a fit of convulsions, Babbington toppled over and questions arose as to whether one of the group could be a murderer, However, laboratory analysis proved that there was no poison, leaving the official cause of death as being natural, at least for a time,
With one of the guests being the famed retired Belgian police detective, Hercule Poirot, clues are sought and relationships unveiled, Trouble is, Poirot cannot find a motive for anything and is left baffled, It is only later that pure nicotine is fingered as the untraceable poison used, and another body turns up dead at a similar party, Might the killer have struck again, perhaps to silence someone, or even readjust the target
When Poirot returns to compare the two murders to one another, he begins to find subtle clues as to what they could both mean and how a motive could soon emerge.
It will take Poirots intuition and dedication to the truth to learn everything there is to know and catch a killer before its too late, Christie uses many of her skills to plot this piece out and entertain her reading public,
I always enjoy challenging myself when Agatha Christie has another Poirot novel for me to read, I find myself learning a great deal, not only about England at the time, but the nuances of detecting, while I read through these books, Christie is sharp with her delivery, succinct in her storytelling, and poignant with the characters she uses, Ill eagerly continue the series to see what other mysteries I can uncover and how Poirot grows on me,
As I have said in past reviews, Hercule Poirot is quite the character, though he prefers to live in the present, His detective work is second to none, though the subtleties can sometimes be a little too slow going, as I want answers in short order, His impact in this book was the presence and discovering the murderer, rather than offering added backstory or development of his own character, Im hoping for something more in the coming novels, as I do like my characters to have depth and no remain static for long periods,
This novel was divided into three acts, a tongue in cheek reference to the fact that one of the main characters is a popular London stage actor, While the books division seemed intriguing, it did not properly separate things as I would have liked, I hoped for something more symbolic throughout, All the same, the narrative did flow nicely and moves from one scene to the next, offering up a handful of strong characters who did their jobs effectively, Midlength chapters served to keep the reader engaged with the piece and did not deter me from reading larger chunks at a time, Im ready for more Poirot and whatever adventures he discovers,
Kudos, Dame Christie, for proving that you are the Queen of Mystery, I hope there is more action to come soon and Poirot can make a great impact,
Love/hate the review An evergrowing collection of others appears at:
sitelink wordpress. com/ At an apparently respectable dinner party, a vicar is the first to die, . . Thirteen guests arrived at dinner at the actor's house, It was to be a particularly unlucky evening for the mildmannered Reverend Stephen Babbington, who choked on his cocktail, went into convulsions and died, But when his martini glass was sent for chemical analysis, there was no trace of poison just as Poirot had predicted, Even more troubling for the great detective, there was absolutely no motive! “I simply cannot bare artists, Their bodies are always such a curious shape, ”
Although Three Act Tragedy is a treasure trove for absurd gems like the quote above, I'm genuinely happy I'm not a character in this book because she literally annihilates everyone over the age of thirty! Agatha Christie, you cheeky little ageist!
It was a pleasure to listen this audiobook narrated by Hugh Fraser, quite the surprising outcome too.
A very enjoyable mystery that kept me guessing, I really enjoyed the strong characterizations, One of the main characters has the rather unusual nickname of Egg, At some point quite far along in the story the nickname Egg is explained, apparently when Hermione Lytton Gore was tiny she would fall over each time she tried to get up, rather like an egg and the name stuck.
It reminded me of the eggshaped weebles that were popular when my sister was little in the earlys, I can remember the jingle from the TV advertisements, "weebles wobble but they don't fall down!" Those advertisers knew a thing or two about creating catchphrases that stick!
Narration by the sublime Hugh Fraser.
I truly enjoy listening to him ably act all the characters in this series, Three Act Tragedy is one of the best stories in Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot series and if I didn't remember the who dunnit since it's my second read I would have enjoyed reading it so much more.
It's intriguing enough and if you read it for the first time you can't possibly imagine why or by whom the murders are being committed, I definitely recommend it!
And as always there are negatives and positives, . .
For me the positives were that there aren't many french sentences in this story and the friend that helped sir Charles in his investigations since I couldn't stand the latter!
The negative ones were that Hercule Poirot isn't so much present while sir Charles and his friends investigate and that I disliked most of the characters in this story! "What friend"
"Hercule Poirot.
"
"That man!" The expression burst from Oliver, "Is he back in England"
"Yes, "
"Why has he come back"
Mr, Satterthwaite rose. "Why does a dog go hunting" he inquired,
And, rather pleased with his retort, he left the room,
Updated to reflect the addition at the bottom of this review of a link to a wonderful article about David Suchet, as well as a a link to his brandnew book, released yesterday! Octoberrd,
Originally published as Murder in Three Acts, Dodd, Mead, and Company, this story is the eleventh mystery sitelinkfeaturing Hercule Poirot by sitelink Agatha Christie.
It's a standalone cozy mystery, set in Cornwall in the U, K. I've previously read all of Christie's mysteries and am now thoroughly enjoying listening to the audio book versions on occasion,
Rating:stars
Narration:stars
The plot, courtesy of Wikipedia: "Sir Charles Cartwright hosts a dinner party at his home in Cornwall.
His guests include: Hercule Poirot Dr Bartholomew Strange Lady Mary Lytton Gore, and her daughter Hermione Captain Dacres and his wife Cynthia Muriel Wills Oliver Manders Mr Satterthwaite and Reverend Babbington and his wife.
When Babbington suddenly dies after sipping one of the cocktails being served, Cartwright believes it was murder, "
A note about Wikipedia: After starting the book, I was having trouble deciphering the character names due to my deafness, So I checked Wikipedia and jumped to the character list, and Grr! The character list on Wikipedia identifies the killer! Since then, I've noticed that Goodreads has a nice spoilerfree character list for this book.
I don't tend to check Goodreads for that, because more often than not, the field isn't filled in,
Christian elements: Not a Christian book, Not much Christian fiction was available inanyway, There are several utterances of "God" in which He is neither being spoken of nor spoken to, However, I did enjoy the following conversation between two of the characters in the story:
"Oliver, . . felt he was not being taken seriously, He said, 'I
hate everything the Church stands for, Smugness, security and hypocrisy. Get rid of the whole canting tribe, I say!' and Mr, Babbington smiled he had a very sweet smile and he said, 'My dear boy, if you were to sweep away all the churches ever built or planned, you would still have to reckon with God.
'"
Is it clean/chaste Yes,
Other content issues: Murder, of course, and the associated violence that goes with that but at a level expected from a cozy mystery,
What I liked: It's a very puzzling mystery, Agatha Christie just oozes cleverness!
What some readers didnt like: Poirot was not in this book very much, I was actually fine with it, but based on the one and twostar reviews, some readers found this offputting,
Audiobook: The narrator for this selection is sitelinkHugh Fraser, and he did a most excellent job, Reading his Goodreads page, I realized that Fraser was the perfect choice to narrate this story, as he played Hastings who doesn't appear in this book in the BBC series for many years.
This interesting sitelinkarticle tells about the end of the Poirot series, and includes some nice pictures of Fraser in the role of Hastings,
After reading that article, the news feed on my phone directed me to the following article: sitelinkDavid Suchet on hisyear run as Poirot, The article mentions a book he has written: sitelink Behind the Lens: My Life,
The bottom line: This is a very good mystery, and I definitely recommend this book to mystery fans, I look forward to listening to more by Agatha Christie, It will just depend on what I can get my hands on! Three Act Tragedy is another good one from Christie,
When the sweet Reverend Babbington falls over dead after drinking a cocktail at renowned actor Sir Charles Cartwright's dinner party, no one but Cartwright thinks it's anything but a terrible tragedy.
Fast forward a bit and another one of the guests from that same dinner party keels over dead,
So ltyou say rather callously,
Well, he dropped dead after having a drink at a party with most of the same guests from Cartwright's,
AND IT WAS POISON!
Smitten with asomething beauty who wants his help,something Sir Charles takes up the mantle of lead amateur investigator, Along with Mr. Satterthwaite and Hercule Poirot, these four will do what the local police cannot solve the mystery!
Fun Fact: This has the distinction of having a girl named Egg as the main love interest.
I'd say she was the heroine of the story, but she's less interested in the mystery and more interested in getting Sir Charles to fall for her, Most of Christie's heroines have their eyes on some guy, but the good ones are also just plain curious and want to figure out whodunnit, Egg only seemed interested in the mystery as an excuse to hang out with Charles and stroke his, . . ego.
Bah!
One thing I liked was that Poirot had to be somewhat prodded to get involved,
Although, I've noticed a great deal of the Poirot stories are about cases he solves after he has retired, And every time we have to go through some spiel about how he's bored, and retirement isn't what he thought it would be, and he needs some stimulation for his grey cells.
After so many books, you'd think he'd just open up his practice again and stop with that vegetable marrow pipedream,
Poirot is the big name in this, but Mr, Satterthwaite is another clever solver of mysteries that I recognized from sitelinkThe Mysterious Mr, Quin. Apparently, he also appears in another short story, Dead Man's Mirror, which is a part of sitelinkMurder in the Mews, ltI'm getting to that one soon,
Overall, this was a fun read that will more than likely keep you guessing till the very end,
Recommended! Keeps you guessing till the last page, نمایشنامه های صوتی از ملکه جنایت بخصوص با اون آهنگ موندگارفوق العاده س Agatha Christie's Belgian detective,Hercule Poirot declares that he has retired,but when the nasty business of murder confronts him,how can he not investigate
And as he says,at the very end,he is lucky not to have become a victim himself.
The murderer has already struck twice,and is preparing to kill again,
Intriguing as it may sound,this is one of the worst Christie books I have read, Too slow and disjointed,the story just plods along,
Poirot's own appearance is relatively brief,and Christie changed the ending for some editions,
A relief,when it finally came to an end,
It had been lying on my shelf for
years,and I hadn't found it compelling enough to complete,earlier,
Also published as Three Act Tragedy,