Review: CURTAIN, Agatha Christie

• 
  This edition an e-book on Kindle
  
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000FCK68Y
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (October 3, 2006)
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0425173747
• my earlier review

Synopsis (Amazon)

The legendary detective saves his best for last as he races to apprehend a five-time killer before the final curtain descends in Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case, the last book Agatha Christie published before her death.

The crime-fighting careers of Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings have come full circle—they are back once again in the rambling country house in which they solved their first murder together.

Both Hercule Poirot and Great Styles have seen better days—but, despite being crippled with arthritis, there is nothing wrong with the great detective and his “little gray cells.” However, when Poirot brands one of the seemingly harmless guests a five-time murderer, some people have their doubts. But Poirot alone knows he must prevent a sixth murder before the curtain falls.

My Take

Published in 1975, and supposedly written about 35 years earlier, which puts it at the beginning of World War II, apparently during the blitz.  

I have read this before, when I was reading the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge. Now I have re-read it for my U3A Agatha Christie Reading Group.  However we intend to keep up our reading and discussion next year.

Nearing the end of his life Hercule Poirot has discovered 5 murders where he believes innocent people have borne the responsibility but at someone else's design. He calls this person X. The place where he met Hastings so many years ago, Styles, has now become a guest house, and one of the people now staying there is X. Poirot realises that X will never be tried in a court of law and he is determined that he will deal with X himself. He wants Hastings to be his eyes and ears because he himself is crippled with arthritis, and prone to heart attacks, and in a wheel chair. 

But Poirot understands the dangers to both Hastings and himself, as well as Hastings' daughter Judith who is also living at Styles.

This novel is a very fitting tribute to Poirot, obviously written while Christie was still enamoured with him, and not yet ready to kill him off.

My rating: 4.7 

All the Christie books I have reviewed. All the short stories.