Now that I have finally managed to pull myself out of holiday mode it was high time to update my Blog again. The first week back at work is almost over and I have actually managed to finish another book in the few days since my Mum went back to Holland and the holiday ended. I had been reading a few pages here and there during Mum's visit but I finished it off over the Bank Holiday Monday we had.... that's what they are for these Bank Holidays... reading and relaxing!
#### SPOILER ALERT ####
After the Funeral - Agatha Christie
The last book to feature our intrepid detective mr Poirot I understand.
As usual with Agatha I made absolutely no attempt to try and figure out "who dunnit". In the few books of hers I have read I have found that she sets them in such a way that about half the people we meet in the story could have committed the crime and she manages to make the look all equally guilty. All characters will each do or say something which makes me think that they are the ones that did the deed... and invariably I am wrong! So I just give up and enjoy the ride and marvel at how well she sets it all up.
The book starts with the funeral of the head of a family, the dearly beloved mr Abernathie. All the relatives gather to say their final goodbyes and we get introduced to the family member one by one. The family lawyer mr Entwhistle very kindly provides us with a very good sketch of each of them so we know who's who from the start. The lawyer proves invaluable to us as readers and to Mr Poirot as well. He is a very observant man and he is willing to travel around to the various family members to do a bit of sleuthing. We spend about half the book meeting the family members and upping the body count - not only does Mr Abernathie meet an untimely end, we also lose Cora Lansquenet (his sister) to an axe wielding fined and then we almost lose her companion miss Gilchrist due to a poisoned wedding cake. In a way they all seem linked and can be explained away as someone just being greedy and wanting to get a bit more money out of the estate.
The book hinges around a remark made by one of the family members after the funeral. It raises doubts with our lawyer friend about how mr Abernathie died and when shortly afterwards mr Abernathie's sister also ends up dead there are plenty of candidates for the role of killer. Part of me kind of assumed that the two murders were linked but later on I realised that this is Agatha Christie and they might not be. What that would then mean for who was the possible murderer was a question I did not pursue.
Interestingly Poirot himself does not show up until we are well into the story (Chapter 12, page 128). This is after both corpses are in the ground and after the wedding cake incident. He is approached by mr Entwhistle to see if all is what it seems with the death of mr Abernathie. He seems to stroll onto the scene just to be an observer and cannot be said to be a man of great vigour and action. He does not really blast onto the scene and takes commands, dazzling you with his insights as he goes along (like Holmes would). But as he himself says, the answers will come from the people, observing them and listening to what they say and how they react. He gets others to do the legwork or him. The scene where this man reports back to him is quite funny!
What I found interesting as well is the attitude that the different family members have towards Poirot. I have to say that he does intentionally make himself sound more "foreign" than he really is but still most of them consider him to be a foreigner who obviously does not speak their language very well, does not follow their conversations, is probably a bit stupid and is just there as a bit of a nuisance to be tolerated as he might be interested in buying their mansion. Because of this they tend to talk more freely even when he is around. This, of course works immensely in Poirot's favour as he can then just sit back, observe and draw his conclusions.
I am not going to tell you who did it! Suffice it to say that how he comes to the conclusion is quite clever I did not see it coming at all. He gets his (wo)man through noticing only a few minute little details, this then sets him a train of thought that leads him to the killer. It's a bit vexing that as a reader you think that you notice similar details but with all the attention to detail in the world I cannot see myself ending up at the same conclusions as Poirot. And even more annoyingly, when you do think you are on the right track the rug gets pulled from under your feet in the next chapter! To me, this makes the the book a frustratingly good read! It is also well paced, with well drawn characters, there's conflict between family members, we have suggestions of possible motives for murder for all the characters (although some seem exempt from suspicion... which made me suspicious!), there is some good and not to mention funny dialogue in there as well.
As I mentioned in a previous Agatha Christie review, I love her books. I know that whenever I read one of hers the garden path is going to be well worn out before she gets through with me but who cares about being right when the read is so much fun.
Title: After the Funeral
Author: Agatha Christie
251 pages
Fontana/Collins
ISBN nr 0-0-616275-4
Books to be read: 71
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