Hercule Poirot and the Stolen AIBU

[SirJamesTalbotAndHisSpeculum]

Would Poirot survive in an internet age?

What would Agatha Christie have made of it?

And can anyone explain the plot of Sparkling Cyanide to me? I have all AC's books and love to read them as I fall asleep. But I have never understood the ending of Sparkling Cyanide.

And I was counting the number of books in which Hastings appears and it's a lot less than I had previously imagined.

Are there no Agatha Christie aficionados on MN?

I love Hastings! The world would be a better place with more Hastings in it

Poor old Hastings. Such an idiot but so cleverly drawn.

A while since I read it but the murderer was the secretary who was involved with the dodgy nephew IIRC - so his mum, who was under his thumb, would inherit the family fortune. They meant to bump off Rosemary and Iris (with auntie as next legatee), but bumped off Rosemary's husband by mistake because he'd sat down at the wrong place at the dinner table, and swallowed the cyanide drink meant for Iris.

I love AC and I prefer Hercule to Marple.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkling_Cyanide

@ScreamingValenta

So what did the dodgy cousin have to do with it? Victor Drake?

hercule is brilliant, i loved david suchet playing him,

@littlepaddypaws

Absolutely agree that Suchet was a perfect Poirot.

I hated the recent dramatization of The ABC Murders.

He was the son of the woman who'd inherit if Iris died - and his mum doted on him so he'd effectively have had control of the money. He was shagging Rosemary's husband's secretary.

Thank you ScreamingValenta - but I do think that Sparkling Cyanide is over-complicated (for my tiny brain anyway.)

My favourite AC is one of the Westmacott books - Absent in the Spring.

But Lord Edgware Dies is also brilliant.

Another admirer of Suchet. The perfect Poirot. Love his little walk

And Joan Hickson as Miss Marple was perfect too.

So much better than Angela Lansbury, Geraldine McEwen and Margaret Rutherford.

And don't get me started on Julia Mackenzie - she has a slight Yorkshire accent which is very off-putting in this role.

My favourite is Death on the Nile. Or, if we are talking film/tv, the 70s film of Murder on the Orient Express.

Oh yes. That film of Murder on the Orient Express is wonderful.

What's the name of the book in which Mr. Osborne poisons everybody with thallium?

Apparently AC herself said that she could imagine Joan Hickson playing Miss Marple when she was older. She was the best.

My favourites are too many to count but I love the Labours of Hercules and Hercule Poirot's Christmas. And out of the non Poirots Death Comes as the End is fantastic.

Hercule Poirot's Christmas!

He wasn't very keen on a blazing log fire, was he?

Preferred central heating.

I grew up reading AC novels, makes me want to look some out and reread them. Joan Hickson was just the perfect Miss Marple, they still get shown on some satellite channel.

I loved Crooked House and The Pale Horse.

Actually - with regard to casting - Hastings and Japp were brilliant.

Although Philip Jackson (Japp) always said that he thought AC books were very over-rated.

I think he'd still have a role in one of the top jobs, but within the Police.

He wouldn't have the access that he did, or the deferring to his MC status, by the servents

Forensics has ruled out a lot of his skills.

But, as Vera shows, you still need the type of brain to put two and two together.

The Geraldine McEwan MM, where there was a flashback of her DTD with an officer lover, was such an anachronism. It was possible to be a virgin in those days!

Joan Hickson was perfect, like a little intelligent bird.

LagunaBubbles I have never much liked Crooked House but it is apparently very highly regarded by AC fans.

I have the complete set of her books and several biographies.