#MyAgathaChristieYear Part 10- ‘Dead Man’s Folly’

About the book…

Ariadne Oliver, Queen of Crime Fiction, has been asked to devise a “Murder Hunt” for a fête at Nasse House, the home of Sir George Stubbs. But she begins to suspect that someone is manipulating the scenario of her game and fears that something very sinister is being planned.

She sends for her old friend Hercule Poirot. At first he is not inclined to take her very seriously but soon a series of events propels him to change his mind.

Then suddenly all Ariadne’s worst fears are realised when the girl playing the part of the murder victim is found strangled in the boat-house.

For Hercule Poirot, the Murder Hunt has become a grim reality.

“He went slowly out of the boat house, unhappy and displeased with himself. He, Hercule Poirot, had been summoned to prevent a murder and he had not prevented it. It had happened. What was even more humiliating was that he had no real ideas, even now, as to what has actually happened. It was ignominious. And tomorrow, he must return to London, defeated. His ego was seriously deflated. Even his mustache drooped.”

The 34th Hercule Poirot mystery, and Ariadne Oliver’s apprearance, ‘Dead Man’s Folly’ was first published in 1956, and has been adapted for several audiobook, audio dramatisation , and screen versions . The full cast dramatisation starring Julia MacKenzie, herself a superb (in my humble opinion) Miss Marple, brings Ariadne Oliver to life with aplomb , and is currently available on the BBC IPlayer here.

Full of mystery within mysteries, foreshadowing and crime, this is another great pairing of Poirot and Christie’s meta fictional counter character, Ariadne Oliver. Being a famed crime writer, she has been asked to contribute to a staged murder, a case with many clues strewn about the grounds of a stately home, in order to raise money in a slightly different format to a ‘who has grown the biggest marrow?‘ competition, or a tombola.

Young scout, Marlene, has volunteered to be the ‘victim’ and to hide in a boat hut, pretending to be dead and awiting discovery. She has a most unsettling conversation with Poirot (brought in to help Ariadne with plotting the murder). When Hattie is introduced to Poirot, she enthuses about the cases he has investigated, and asks him about ‘sex murders‘ with which she is obsessed. You can sense his recoil from this, followed immediately by a throwaway remark which may have sealed poor Marlen’s fate.

It is the innocent remark in an ordinary conversation which not only brings the murderer to notice Marlene, but also for Poirot to solve the entire case.

Ariadne causes no end of chaos between the real and mocked up murders, and the police investigating the crime have no end of difficulty separating her outrageous theories whilst Poirot gets down to work trying to figure out who visited Marlen, who killed her and why.

He is relentless and unstoppable as he pulls apart the large amount of people who could have done it whilst trying to rationalise who would want to kill a child.

The concept of otherness, outsider ship in Poirot, the role of George Stubbs the lord of the manor in shouting at the foreign youth hostellers for not recognising his superiority, the maintenance of family lineage and traditions with absolutely no intent of moving into the modern world, all of these are key tropes of Christie’s writing. There are several uses of terms which are not acceptable by modern standards when referring to non-English people which only emphasises the ridiculousness of the outrageous perspectives held by racist and sexist individuals.

A thrilling mystery shot through with humour that nails the situation so succinctly, I really enjoyed this one. I am also glad not to be reading them in order as by book 34 I might have been a bit fed up of Poirot and I don’t want that to ever happen!

About the author…

Agatha Christie is the best-selling author of all time. She wrote 66 crime novels and story collections, fourteen plays, and six novels under a pseudonym in Romance. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and a billion in translation. According to Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author, having been translated into at least 103 languages. She is the creator of two of the most enduring figures in crime literature-Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple-and author of ‘The Mousetrap’, the longest-running play in the history of modern theatre.