Poirot and faithful Hastings end up at Styles, the same house where the very first Hercule Poirot mystery takes place. They have to catch a diabolical fiend who is responsible for a strong of deaths, and also protect Hastings's daughter from said fiend. Poirot is in failing health, and seeing him through the kind eyes of Hastings was sometimes almost enough to bring me to tears. So I wouldn't say I enjoyed this book, really. I doubt I will reread it.
If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for descriptions of some poisonings, discussions of marital infidelity, and a smattering of bad language.
This is my 39th book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list. Although Curtain was published in 1975, which is after my usual cut-off for when I will consider a book a classic, it was written during WWII. So I think it suits.
This was the book that put me off Agatha Christie as a writer. I read it just after reading Sherlock Holmes and The Greek Interpreter. And ... inspiration is not a strong enough word for the connection here.
ReplyDeleteCharlotte, I will never expect Christie to compare to Doyle. But I do enjoy her Poirot, Pyne, and Quin stories quite a lot.
DeleteBut I'm a little confused as to what you mean about inspiration? Do you see similarities between this book and "The Greek Interpreter"?
I sure do, the whole plot in "Curtain" is copy/pasted from "The Greek Interpreter". Other persons, other places, same plot. Since I accidentally read those two less than a week apart, I cannot read Christie any more without wondreing from where she got this plot - which totally spoils the pleasure.
DeleteOf course I could be totally wrong, I haven't re'read eithe book for decades, but that's my impression from back then.
I have to say, I can't see it. "The Greek Interpreter" is about trying to rescue a young man who's being held captive and starved until he signs away his sister's property to his captors. Curtain is about Poirot trying to trap a diabolical schemer who has caused many murders while keeping his own hands clean, and also keep his friend Hastings's daughter out of being suspected of murder herself.
DeleteI suppose I could see some similarities between Curtain and the Sherlock Holmes story "The Dying Detective," though only superficial ones involving a detective pretending to be gravely ill, since the plot there is about an assassination attempt against Holmes.
Maybe you're thinking of a different Christie book? I've only read a handful.
As I said it's long ago. I wrote about in in m diary then and have looked - this are the two books I read back then. It might just be my quirky brain ;) Something about a man solving a similar case without leaving his room. I might have to dig them out of the library to see and divine what I meant then., Thanks for answering.
DeleteOh! I see! I guess I'm so used to the concept of the "armchair detective" that I didn't even think about that similarity. Since the idea of a detective solving a case just by sitting and thinking about it originates with the very author who also invented the detective fiction genre, Edgar Allan Poe, I wouldn't consider Christie's using it as a rip-off of Conan Doyle's story. There were quite a few armchair detective stories before "The Greek Interpreter" and certainly scads of them between it and when Christie wrote Curtain in the 1940s and published it in the 1970s.
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