#MyAgathaChristieYear Part 9 – ‘Halloween Party’

About the book…

A teenage murder witness is drowned in a tub of apples…

At a Hallowe’en party, Joyce—a hostile thirteen-year-old—boasts that she once witnessed a murder. When no-one believes her, she storms off home.

But within hours her body is found, still in the house, drowned in an apple-bobbing tub. That night, Hercule Poirot is called in to find the ‘evil presence’.

But first he must establish whether he is looking for a murderer or a double-murderer…

It had to be done.. my woeful Agatha Christie readathon limps forward with the seasonal treat of ‘Halloween Party’ by Agatha Christie!!! This is one of the most macabre and chilling of the Poirot mysteries and I completely love it.

Stay tuned to the foot of the page where there is a link to a special episode of the fabulous podcast,All About Agatha!

Any book of Christie’s which features her thinly disguised self in the form of the writer,Ariadne Oliver is always going to feature highly on my list of her favourites.

In this one, a party goes horribly, tragically wrong after a young girl makes a shocking announcement and is summarily dispatched. It sounded as though she was talking complete nonsense when she mentioned having seen a murder being committed but her subsequent death indicates that not only was she correct, her murderer must have been at the party as well.

Horrified by this crime, Ariadne and Poirot team up to work out which of the attendees was responsible, and why, uncovering more than one historical crime as they do. Unravelling the plot is impossible as the genius of Christie is in the seamless joins of the interwoven storylines.

You’d think to yourself that the levels of coincidence are too high to be possible in real life, however, how many times have you been attracted to a place, or behaved randomly only for the universe to then remind you that even the most spontanteous of acts have an unlikely outcome?

How is it, that in a city of hundreds of 1000’s of people, that you can, without telling a certain family member that you are going there, or know their plans for the day,walk into exactly the same shop at the same time?

You will be thinking that is preposterous yet this actually happened to me today so the idea of Poirot and Ariadne finding 3 potential murders happening at the same time, in the same place, is totally as believable as poor Joyce being at a party with her murderer. It is the same inevitable fact that she does not recognise the danger that she has just placed herself in, exhibiting as she does, the underdog’s need for attention . Christie smartly captures the teenager’s obsession with self at the same time as creating the circumstance for the person related to the crime Joyce thinks she saw, when she was younger.

The blind ambition and folly of a young girl is so dreadfully reaped that it sparks the indignant wrath of Ariadne Oliver and is also a cautionary tale of gossip and repetition of such-careless words can have a lasting consequence,that is not likely to be worth the attention gained from disclosing a secret. And ignoring a child’s words, as all the adults attending the party do, has consequence for them too as this is a most dreadful and horrible crime-a violent and unnatural end to a young life. Joyce is described as stupid and silly but the anger and despair is directed at the adults not seeing the danger she had put herself in. Herein lies the genius of Agatha Christie-all the small details which people overlook are there in plain sight if only we have the wisdom to look for it.

For no matter what mask or artifice we use to disguise out true nature, the truth will always be found by the keen eyed observer. There is no greater horror than the damage done by a cruel and unusual murderer with evil and malice embedded where their conscience should lie.

Dark, deeply disturbing and yet somehow extremely satisfying, this is probably my favourite seasonal tale of Agatha Christie’s.

Have you read this book, and if so, what did you think?

Drop me a line and let me know!

*as an aside, Mark Gatiss, one quarter of The League Of Gentlemen, adapted this for the sublime David Suchet ‘Poirot’ series, with Zoe Wannamaker as Ariadne Oliver-check out the clip below, it is extremely good and comes highly recommended*

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 ,Mary Westmacott.

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.

Links-https://www.podbean.com/ew/dir-sgq2s-30a5a97

https://www.agathachristie.com/

Links to other review posts-

My Agatha Christie Year Part 8-Lord Edgware Dies

My Agatha Christie Year Part 7-After The Funeral

My Agatha Christie Year Part 6-Five Little Pigs

My Agatha Christie Year Part 5 -Poirot Investigates

My Agatha Christie Year Part 4-Cards On the Table

My Agatha Christie Year Part 3- N Or M?

My Agatha Christie Year-Part 2-The Man In The Brown Suit

My Agatha Christie Year Part 1-Miss Marple’s Final Cases