Book: Cards On The Table
Author: Agatha Christie
Publication Date: 1936
Mr Shaitana was a person of dubious character. He was attending a snuff box exhibition when he ran into our own detective Hercule Poirot. Shaitana was quick enough to invite him for dinner and lured him to meet some strange invitees.
There was something peculiar about that invitation. A collector of many strange things, Shaitana also nurtured a macabre habit. Some of the invitees to the dinner invitation were none other than people who have gotten away easily after committing murders. He had a strange talent of extracting hidden secrets from people and he used his talent arduously to find such people and bring them together to a dinner table at his house.
Finally, the fateful day had come. After the dinner, the guests decided to play bridge and divided themselves into two groups.
When the first group consisted of Dr Roberts, Major Despard, Mrs Lorrimer and Miss Anne Meredith, the second group consisted of Hercule Poirot, Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard, detective fiction writer Mrs Adriane Oliver and Colonel Race, a retired secret service operative.
Both of the groups sat in two different rooms while Shaitana, the host did not take part in the game but sat in the first room by the fire, observing the players.
When they approached their host to bid good bye, after the bridge, to their utter shock, they found him murdered in his chair. He was stabbed in the neck with a stiletto.
In no time, Superintendent Battle took charge of the situation. It was then, the players in the second room realised that Shaitana had carefully picked his guests. While the guests in the second room were associated with investigation and authority, his choice of guests in the first room was a hint from Shaitana that they were possibly murderers who had gotten away after committing it. Shaitana had suggested the same thing to Hercule Poirot when they met at the snuff box exhibition.
Never in the wildest of his dreams, he might have thought that by inviting such people he was inviting his own death.
According to Christie, this was Hercule Poirot's favourite case though Hastings, his companion found it dull. For a change, she had come up with three other sleuths as well along with Poirot to nab the culprit from among the four possible murderers. It's not mostly the clues which had helped the four detectives in their sleuthing but pure psychology.
Though I understood the basic plot, the reading became a bit strainful when Poirot decided to analyse the suspects from their bridge scores. Because I don't know how to play bridge. Besides, there were many twists and turns.
Like most of her novels, Agatha Christie in this novel too was adamant that the reader shouldn't find out the culprit before she discloses it to them. Even though she had offered a clue in the foreword of the novel that there were four possible murderers, I failed miserably in detecting the real one. But that's the fun of it and that makes her the " Queen of Crime ".
To talk about the character Mrs Adriane Oliver, the 'whodunnit' mystery writer, she was full of energy and fun and Agatha Christie did leave no stones unturned to poke her.
Long and short, in her 25th novel, her plotting abilities were at its zenith.
- by Shalet Jimmy
Author: Agatha Christie
Publication Date: 1936
Mr Shaitana was a person of dubious character. He was attending a snuff box exhibition when he ran into our own detective Hercule Poirot. Shaitana was quick enough to invite him for dinner and lured him to meet some strange invitees.There was something peculiar about that invitation. A collector of many strange things, Shaitana also nurtured a macabre habit. Some of the invitees to the dinner invitation were none other than people who have gotten away easily after committing murders. He had a strange talent of extracting hidden secrets from people and he used his talent arduously to find such people and bring them together to a dinner table at his house.
Finally, the fateful day had come. After the dinner, the guests decided to play bridge and divided themselves into two groups.
When the first group consisted of Dr Roberts, Major Despard, Mrs Lorrimer and Miss Anne Meredith, the second group consisted of Hercule Poirot, Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard, detective fiction writer Mrs Adriane Oliver and Colonel Race, a retired secret service operative.
Both of the groups sat in two different rooms while Shaitana, the host did not take part in the game but sat in the first room by the fire, observing the players.
When they approached their host to bid good bye, after the bridge, to their utter shock, they found him murdered in his chair. He was stabbed in the neck with a stiletto.
In no time, Superintendent Battle took charge of the situation. It was then, the players in the second room realised that Shaitana had carefully picked his guests. While the guests in the second room were associated with investigation and authority, his choice of guests in the first room was a hint from Shaitana that they were possibly murderers who had gotten away after committing it. Shaitana had suggested the same thing to Hercule Poirot when they met at the snuff box exhibition.
Never in the wildest of his dreams, he might have thought that by inviting such people he was inviting his own death.
According to Christie, this was Hercule Poirot's favourite case though Hastings, his companion found it dull. For a change, she had come up with three other sleuths as well along with Poirot to nab the culprit from among the four possible murderers. It's not mostly the clues which had helped the four detectives in their sleuthing but pure psychology.
Though I understood the basic plot, the reading became a bit strainful when Poirot decided to analyse the suspects from their bridge scores. Because I don't know how to play bridge. Besides, there were many twists and turns.
Like most of her novels, Agatha Christie in this novel too was adamant that the reader shouldn't find out the culprit before she discloses it to them. Even though she had offered a clue in the foreword of the novel that there were four possible murderers, I failed miserably in detecting the real one. But that's the fun of it and that makes her the " Queen of Crime ".
To talk about the character Mrs Adriane Oliver, the 'whodunnit' mystery writer, she was full of energy and fun and Agatha Christie did leave no stones unturned to poke her.
Long and short, in her 25th novel, her plotting abilities were at its zenith.
- by Shalet Jimmy
