Dumb Witness: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition (Hercule Poirot Mysteries, 16)

Eh bien, it’s been almost four years since I last reviewed a Hercule Poirot mystery...and I wasn’t disappointed. This is my sixth review of an Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot novel. I absolutely love reading the adventures of the somewhat rotund short Belgian mustachioed detective. Poirot never uses muscle (does he have any?) to apprehend the guilty person. He tells Captain Arthur Hastings (the narrator of this novel) what a detective is after Hastings accuses Poirot of being very noticeable, “That is because you have the mistaken idea implanted in your head that a detective is necessarily a man who puts on a false beard and hides behind a pillar! The false beard, it is vieux jeu, and shadowing is only done by the lowest branch of my profession. The Hercule Poirots, my friend, need only to sit back in a chair and think.” Mon ami, once again I failed to pick out the murderer, putting my record at one successful and five unsuccessful ascertains. Oh well, so who got murdered? Hercule gets a letter dated April 17th on June 28th from Emily Arundell from the country town of Market Basing in England. It’s odd that it took so long to get to London. It’s a very hazy letter with many underlined and triple underlined words. She ask about his fees but doesn’t tell Hercule exactly what she wants. It seems that she had an accidental fall down a flight of stairs, but now suspects that one of her relatives visiting during the Easter holiday might have tried to murder her. The reason? She is a sickly and wealthy old woman with two nieces and one nephew who are eager for their inheritance. They need money now. Hercule and his friend, Captain Hastings, decide to drive down to Market Basing in Hasting’s second hand Austin. When they arrive, they find that Emily has recently died and the house is for sale. They also learn that everyone involved says “Bob”, the wire-haired Terrier, left his ball on the top of the stairs and Emily tripped over it causing her to fall down the stairs. But that fall didn’t kill her...only left her bruised. So how did she pass away? Was it a natural death or murder? Let’s meet the suspects. When the Will was read, Emily’s house companion, Wilhelmina Lawson, got the estate and most of the cash. The maid and cook got small cash rewards. Miss Lawson was flabbergasted...or is she a good actor? Emily’s nephew, Charles, who has previously been in trouble with the law, desperately needed cash. Did he kill Emily, not knowing that Emily (just before her death) changed the Will...leaving all the relatives out? Emily’s niece,Theresa, wanted money to fund her fiance doctor’s research project. Did they kill Emily? The second niece, Bella Tanios wanted out of her marriage with a Greek doctor. She needed money to live in the style she desired with her two children. Or did Bob, the dog, leave the ball on the stairs on purpose? Did he have an alibi? (just kidding, but he really did have one). Captain Hastings isn’t sure Emily was murdered. Hercule asks him, “It does not intrigue you at all to know who attempted to kill her?” Hercule goes to the grave site and discovers that Emily died on May 1st 1936. Poirot stood looking for some time. He murmured softly: “May 1st...May 1st...and today, June 28th, I receive her letter. You see, do you not, Hastings, that that fact has got to be explained?” And explained it will be. One of the reasons I love reading the old classics is the nostalgia that you learn from the period. This novel was published in 1937 and exhibits some of the prejudices of that era. On page 183, Agatha headlines the chapter, A nigg** in the woodpile. Wow, even in England? Wikipedia defines the term as, “A nigg** in the woodpile is a dated American figure of speech meaning, some fact of considerable importance that is not disclosed-something suspicious or wrong.” It can also mean: When a caucasian has some negroid ancestory there is said to have been a nigg** in the woodpile, usually said if the caucasian has some negroid traits like kinky hair. Anyway, enough of the history lesson. I loved the novel.

SPOILERS TO THE MAX. DON'T READ THIS IF YOU DON'T LIKE THEM.This seems to be universally seen as a good Christie mystery but not one of her best. Charles Osborne says as much in his introduction to the Kindle edition. So let's give it the four stars Christie's genius deserves and then talk about Christie in general.I read this book first when I was ten years old, and I remember the trouble I had and how the book seemed to swell, collapse and start leaking pages, as if it were just as upset as I was. When you're ten years old and have the leisure time to read Christie mysteries, you don't really understand people killing one another over an inheritance.But even now that I'm older, I'm a little troubled by people who kill one another over an inheritance THEY DON'T GET! Darn! I killed her but she had changed her will! Oh, well. I guess I'll just have to kill someone else. I can commit the perfect murder any time I want to (if it weren't for that darned Poirot, no one would even suspect there WAS a murder) but I'm always so careless about checking how the will reads.Okay. Let that go. When I was ten, I foolishly thought the point of the books really was to figure out who committed the murder. If you read on that basis, you will be bored out of your mind and still not figure out who did it. Or even if you do figure out who did it, that will be because you read one page closely, and God help you if you read the other 200 pages that closely, because clue-hunting isn't worth that much effort and the other 200 pages have no important clues in them at all.No. You read a Christie mystery in order to get character sketches of middle-class Englishmen who live on inherited wealth, mixed in with a few "paid companions" and similar lowlifes. In this book we have an abused spouse, painted as thoroughly as anyone could wish, who turns out ... NOT TO BE ABUSED! In other words, Christie has her cake and eats it too, in the meantime preaching (softly) a rather ugly sermon: if you complain about being abused, maybe it's because you're a murderer. It's certainly not because you're abused; I just put that in to fool the reader.Meanwhile there's the fill-in around the murder story: guys who steal money out of drawers, or blow all their income going to foreign night clubs, and who are there just to make their scenes interesting. If they weren't crooked, we couldn't suspect them, but since they aren't the ones who did it here (in the next book one of them will be the one who did it), we just have to get max fun out of how crooked and suspectable they are. Christie even says one of them has no moral sense, but is totally charming -- and everyone in the book agrees and likes the guy even though they all know he's a thief who has been in police custody! Meanwhile foreigners are sinister and untrustworthy by definition even though they AREN'T thieves.You see how important it is to be English?And this stew, or brew, of suspects and fake spousal abuse, is told at such an immense distance, and in such a mild way, that you have to work yourself up to care what is happening. Hastings, the Watson of the story, doesn't even believe there has been a murder till the book is three quarters over. The rest of the characters, WHETHER THEY HAVE MURDERED ANYONE OR NOT, spend all their time sitting around wishing the inheritance had gone another way. It ain't exactly Jane Austen: Jane Austen would have made fun of the characters' greed and self-obsession, but Agatha Christie can't make fun of the only thing that keeps her plot going at all: the readers' sympathy with the characters' greed.Like the vast majority of Christie mysteries, this is elegant, cleverly plotted and slow-moving, with a clumsy elegance based on everybody being well-off to begin with, and greedy on top of that. I'm glad I've read most of Christie. As far as I can see, that shows I have more reading discipline than an expert on Shakespeare needs.

This book marks the final appearance of Captain Hastings (except for his return in Poirot's final case, "Curtain").The Arundell family consists of Miss Emily Arundell, the last surviving daughter of General Arundell and the keeper of the family fortune. Emily Arundell has relatives Charles Arundell, Teresa Arundell (& her fiance Dr Rex Donaldson), Bella Arundell Tanios (& her husband, the 'undesirable foreigner' Dr Jacob Tanios). Her relatives all have various reasons to need money -- and as frugal Emily Arundell has more than she spends, they want her to give them some. She refuses point-blank... during their visit, she trips and falls down the stairs; her dog, Bob, has a rubber ball that is found at the scene and is blamed for tripping her. She is amazingly unhurt (only shaken up and with some bruises); as she recovers from the shock, she is not sure that Bob is to blame...Poirot receives a letter from her, but he is interested that the letter arrives two months after the date on it, and investigates. He discovers that Emily Arundell has passed away, and begins to investigate.As is usual in any Agatha Christie story, there are twists and turns up to the final reveal.Bob, the dog, has lines (thoughts) in the book, and is a fun character - he provides clues to Poirot, and though Bob was left to him, it is Hastings to takes him home to Argentina.Agatha Christie had a dog (Peter), and this book is dedicated to him.

She was concerned that any suspicion be left regarding Bob's role in the mystery. No canine, she said, would risk the life of the hand that feeds it. I assured her that Poirot's little grey cells would, without a doubt, clear the terrier of all suspicions, and leave Bob in a better place. I was right.

Bedtime reading.

As is usual absorbing story and perfect ending. On to the next one! I know that I will enjoy it.

Had already seen Agatha Christie's Poirot starring David Suchet, I already knew who was the culprit.. But reading this book was a totally awesome experience.. Very detailed.. Loved every moment of it.. PS.. Whenever there is any line of Poirot.. I hear David Suchet speaking in my mind as I read it..😄😁🙂

Tempi di consegna velocissimi, prodotto arrivato in perfette condizioni.

El libro llegó a tiempo en excelentes condiciones. La edición es muy buena y el libro aunque se vea algo grande, no lo es tanto. Es ligero y las letras son bastante visibles (no son tan pequeñas). Una excelente compra si estás buscando este libro.