Hallowe'en Party (Hercule Poirot, #41) in Retro Chapter Chicks

Oct 22, 2023 Brina rated it liked it

Shelves: detective, hercule-poirot, mystery, agatha-christie

It’s been awhile since I read a Hercule Poirot mystery. Just the other day I was telling one of my students to make better use of her little gray cells but she didn’t get the anecdote. Sixth grade was when I started reading Dame Christie and I mentioned a few of the classics that got me started to these two girls, and, needless to say, they were intrigued. One of my reading accomplishments this year is getting my seventh grade daughter to read Christie mysteries. It just means that if I bring a It’s been awhile since I read a Hercule Poirot mystery. Just the other day I was telling one of my students to make better use of her little gray cells but she didn’t get the anecdote. Sixth grade was when I started reading Dame Christie and I mentioned a few of the classics that got me started to these two girls, and, needless to say, they were intrigued. One of my reading accomplishments this year is getting my seventh grade daughter to read Christie mysteries. It just means that if I bring a paper back home from the library, I might not be the first person to read it. Better that a teenager read than use a device so I chalk it up as a win. Contrary to popular sentiment, I did not pick up this particular Poirot case because of the current movie based loosely on the book. I have yet to see the modern interpretations of Hercule Poirot nor do I have any desire to do so. Rather, one of retro chapter chicks friends and I are buddy reading one Christie book a month to fill in gaps of ones we may have missed. I wanted to start with Poirot because he has always been my favorite detective.

Ariadne Oliver is invited to a party and, surprise, murder happens. Of course, she asks her friend Hercule Poirot to help her solve the case. Poirot is long retired at this point, this book published a mere seven years before Christie’s death. Poirot still dresses impeccably and has full use of his little gray cells. People of a certain age still revere his accomplishments, but to a younger generation the Belgian sleuth has no meaning. In this particular case, one of Poirot’s last, Oliver attends a party at the request of an acquaintance that she met on a cruise. It is to be a Halloween party for tweens and teens under the supervision of their parents and hostess. During the preparations a girl named Joyce mentions that she once saw a murder, most likely to impress authoress Oliver, and at the party she is found drowned in the bucket used for bobbing for apples. A little close to home, last night I found myself watching Casino Royale, and how does James Bond kill his first victim- by holding his head down in a sink. Tangents aside, this is how Poirot comes to be in Oliver’s services.

Not coincidentally, Christie has Poirot’s old friend Superintendent Spence retired to the inclosed community where the murder took place. Spence doesn’t know many of the community members but his sister Elspeth seems to be the town gossip and knows everything about everyone. There seems to be one of those in every Poirot and Miss Marple case. Murder is usually committed by a person who is familiar to the victim. A detective is in need of a local gossip to find out everything about everyone, and here that person is Elspeth McKay. From these details, Poirot questions everyone who was at the party and finds out their backstories. The most important clue he gleans is that the victim Joyce Reynolds was a compulsive liar and adults did not like her much. Few of the adults in this town are likable people so at first it appears that anyone at the party could have murdered Joyce. It takes a certain type of deranged, wicked person to murder a child so Poirot must solve the case before everyone in the village is afraid for their children’s lives.

By this 41st book in the Poirot series, Christie has become formulaic. The modern movie may be made out to be a haunting Hallowe’en tale but the only thing remotely scary about this book is that it took place on Halloween. A murder occurs in Oliver’s presence. She asks Poirot for his assistance. Poirot arrives and questions people and his mind goes in a direction that baffles police, who then wonder if he still has all his faculties. Poirot trusts his mind because he is only known to have been wrong once or maybe twice in all these years. Of course, Poirot uses the clues he has to piece together the case and solves the multi-layered mystery, leaving the local police scratching their heads. Christie per usual leaves a key piece of the crime until the end but having read enough of her books at this point, I didn’t know exactly who the murderer was, but I understood her steps leading us to that points. My guess is that in her own old age, Christie was losing a step, although still sharper than the majority of people at that age. The formula still works to an extent but one can sense that the cozy mystery that she created is from a bygone era, as she attempted to insert a spookier element to appeal to modern readers but fell short in scaring people because it wasn’t in her personality to do so.

I am left wondering if I had been around when Hallowe’en Party was first published if I would have been scared. There would have been no modern technology and the thought of a murderer drowning a teenaged girl would have been scary enough in its time. Christie attempts to be scary with this case, even using the literary anecdote of the meanest woman of them all, Lady MacBeth. Yet being scary doesn’t work, although perhaps it does work in the movie that I will most likely never see. To me Poirot is a detective from a bygone era, traveling the Orient Express or on the Nile, sipping his brandy. He belongs in the era when he was created and becomes an anachronism to young people as time marches on. That is why I love Poirot, his moustaches, and use of his little gray cells to solve crimes that most of us cannot even fathom. The author, as in true of many older authors today as well, must have outlived the story arc of her detective because it is apparent here that she should have put down the pen years earlier and allowed Poirot to enjoy his retirement.

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Feb 03, 2019 Melissa ♥ Dog/Wolf Lover ♥ Martin rated it liked it

Shelves: mystery-thriller-etc, paperback-own, own, classics

I love Poirot!

Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾 ...more

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Oct 26, 2018 Book Concierge rated it liked it

Shelves: library, concierge, audio, mystery, detective, england, series

Audiobook read by John Moffatt.

Mrs Rowena Drake is hosting a Halloween Party for the teens in her area. Mrs Ariadne Oliver, who is visiting a friend, has been roped into helping with the party preparations. During preparations she meets a young fan, Joyce Reynolds, who states she loves Mrs Oliver’s mystery books. That evening during the party itself, Joyce is found drowned in a bucket intended for apple bobbing. Who could possibly have murdered a child?! Ariadne asks her good friend Hercule Poir ...more

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Oct 28, 2023 Theresa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics-and-classic-redos, detective, cozy-mysteries, audio, z-pop-sugar-2023-reading-challenge, christie

Excellent reread and I was surprised at how much of the parallel murder mystery I had forgotten. The girl drowned in the bobbing for apples tub, and the family dynamic there I remembered. It's a late Poirot, published in 1969, and Christie stuck to the familiar, did not try to incorporate current events, which I think made this work just fine. Besides, I love mysteries with an inheritance theme lurking somewhere. The ending drama was a tad over-the-top and unrealistic, but a minor complaint.

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Oct 11, 2022 ˜”*°•.˜”*°• Sheri •°*”˜.•°*”˜ rated it liked it

Shelves: agatha-christie, group-read-mystery

The story begins with the murder of 13-year-old girl, Joyce, at a Halloween party. Someone held her head under water, in the apple bobbing tub, until she drowned. Poirot’s friend, mystery writer Ariadne Oliver, was at the party. While Joyce and others were helping to set up the party, the girl told Oliver that she had witnessed a murder a long time earlier that nobody realized was a murder at the time. That comment may have led to Joyce’s death a few hours later, and a guilt-stricken Oliver asks ...more

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Oct 26, 2022 Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ Jenn Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ Schu rated it liked it

Shelves: mysteries-of-all-kinds, classics

In this Hercule Poirot mystery, Poirot is summoned by Ariadne Oliver to solve the murder of an adolescent girl, Joyce. Joyce boasts that she witnessed a murder and a short time later is found drowned in a bucket of apples for bobbing. The mystery unfolds at a slow pace with the readers learning about what happened at the end of the story, so not a lot of clues for readers that enjoy solving mysteries.
The book is one of the more gruesome, so not for the feint at heart. It is well told albeit it ...more

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