The Clocks

While this is not my favourite Poirot it\’s good. I have to admit being wrong on the solution if this one. I usually come close to right on with mystery, having read so many of them but I was off on this one. Well written, well developed characters.

This is nothing like vintage Christie. Poirot plays a walk-on role. Dame Agatha seems a bit the worse for wear; the years have taken their toll. Never mind. If you one of the very many who feels better for having read yet another of the long list of works she created throughout a long and productive life, you will enjoy this one. A dead body is found by a young woman called to the house in which the crime takes place by an assignment as a temporary secretary from the Agency for which she works. Later, another young woman from the same agency is murdered in the vicinity. A police inspector is in charge of the investigation, with his friend, a counter-spy, tagging along since he met the first young woman who came screaming out of the house. For the counter-espionage agent it is love at first sight. As the investigation runs headlong into a stone wall, the young agent visits with his friend, Hercule Poirot, who is idle and fretting over it. While we watch, the investigators gather evidence, the romance gathers steam, and Poirot digests the information given him. We stand in the wings as neighbors are interrogated by the police or softly questioned by the young agent. They are a diverse lot, as are the others who are dropped into the search for the killer. As indicated, despite the relative lack of complexity in plotting, and off-stage presence of Poirot, I enjoyed every part of the book.The Inspector is no fool nor brute, The young man personable, ah, the young woman is a mystery, what will we learn about her. Poirot is off in his London apartment, upset by the renovation of the building in which he has an apartment, happy to activate his little grey cells on the mystery brought him by his friend, the young agent. I enjoyed the book more than most of the (often quite good) current mysteries I read. Dame Agatha is a friend of long standing and I am entertained by whatever she cared to share with us, her readers.

Good plot, good characters, typical Poirot whereby he is particularly lazy, as he refuses to leave his appartment till the very end: this is set where Poirot is already retired (though we all know that even retired he can\’t stop working on cases…) and he stubbornly refuses to move claiming – as usual – that one can always solve everything by reflecting and using the little grey cells. Of course, as is invariably the case, Poirot will solve the full mystery at the end, with no shortage of arrogance and usual self contentment. Otherwise in this book you will find what is apparently an old acquaintance of Poirot, here called Colin Lamb (though he is a spy and this is not his real name): I read majority of Poirot books but I cannot remember another novel with this character though… Be warned that in this book the inspector in charge (Hardcastle, who is actually quite smart in comparison with some other Christie\’s inspectors – but yet again he cannot even come close to finding the solution..) and Colin Lamb are mostly the ones making inquiries and investigating. You will see very little of Poirot till the end, where he shows everyone how it should be done (obviously this case is for him a simple walk in the park)… Note: at some point during the book Poirot is making interesting reviews of past crime writers: as often Sherlock is taking his fair amount of criticisms – quite funny and for avid Christie\’s reader, she usually makes snappy comments about – supposedly – shortcomings of Conan Doyle\’s Sherlock novels (of course these comments are not to be taken too serioulsy – but since I also read the complete Sherlock Holmes novel and I have to say though that Christie – or Poirot through whom Christie is generally speaking her mind – sometimes has a point).

I was a bit disappointed with this title. M. Poirot doesn\’t come into the story until about 3/4 of the way through and (in the story), to make a point he says he can solve the crime while sitting in his chair at home and getting the case\’s clues from a friend of his. The main story is being told alternately by the lead detective on the police force and a friend of his that works for, what appears to be the British spy service. This isn\’t a bad thing as the story is still engagingly written, but it could have excluded M. Poirot and it still would have been a good mystery.

This is a very complicated read. One of Agatha Christie\’s best Perot mysteries. It is a wonderful story, going multiple directions and making you want to know more about each character. It would be worth a second reading just to go back and see how the characters\’ lives interact and how clues are misread and/or ignored until Perot solves it all with his little grey cells. You know it\’s a good book when you long for a sequel, multiple sequels. Highly recommend \”The Clocks\”.

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