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The A.B.C. Murders (Hercule Poirot, #13)

Agatha Christie

Start date: March 1, 2019

Finish date: March 31, 2019

Discussion: Archive: Poirot Buddy Reads

Why we're reading this: Group member Jessica is organising reads of all the Poirot books.
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Archive: Poirot Buddy Reads

* Reading Order for the Unofficial Poirot Buddy Reads
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Poirot Buddy Read 40: SPOILER THREAD Curtain
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What Members Thought

Jun 28, 2009 Tracey rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

What: paperback
What else: First person narrative
Wherefore: it was on Mount TBR, and my Kindle was acting up

Hastings: "I admit," I said, "that a second murder in a book often cheers things up."

Poirot has semi-retired, but has discovered he is no better suited to the state than Holmes is said to have been, and so lets it be known that he is available to take those cases that interest him (again, like Holmes). At the beginning of this tale Hastings has come home to England from his ranch in Arge What: paperback
What else: First person narrative
Wherefore: it was on Mount TBR, and my Kindle was acting up

Hastings: "I admit," I said, "that a second murder in a book often cheers things up."

Poirot has semi-retired, but has discovered he is no better suited to the state than Holmes is said to have been, and so lets it be known that he is available to take those cases that interest him (again, like Holmes). At the beginning of this tale Hastings has come home to England from his ranch in Argentina, and expresses his hopes that some interesting case might pop up while he's there. And, of course, it does. Though it does not necessarily seem that way at first.

Poirot receives an odd letter – printed, in common ink on common paper, and a postmark unremarkable – which proposes a challenge for the great mind. It's cheeky, and mildly insulting to the famous detective, and is signed "A.B.C.", and indicates that something is going to happen on a specific day in a specific town, and let's just see how clever you are! Hastings pooh-poohs the letter as one of those things written by some random crazy person, but Poirot is troubled by it.

Something does indeed happen on that day in that town: an elderly woman is found murdered in her tobacco shop. Poirot, uneasy, heads to the crime scene. Hastings makes no bones about how utterly bored he is with the mere "sordid murder of an old woman". It's because the killer seems to be obvious – if Poirot hadn't received the letter there would never have been any question about it. And it's also because the victim is dull. A sordid domestic dispute is the only reason an older woman would be murdered. Bo-ring. This was about when I realized how little I like Hastings. I don't know if Christie was purposely using the smart Holmes-stupid Watson template, but Watson was never this thick, and would have given a damn about the death of an old woman, whether it was a case deserving of a great detective or not.

As it turns out, this is deserving: the woman's name, her shop name, and her town all begin with "A". Then another letter comes directing Poirot's attention to a town beginning with "B". Uh oh. And sure enough, the victims begin to pile up, in strict alphabetical order.

I've never been a big Poirot fan. I don't know if it's the prissiness or the accent or the little grey cells or the mustache or what, but I'll take Miss Marple any time, scary as she can be. In fact, I pulled this off the shelf because I would have sworn it was a Miss M. Oops. Still, the story was fun – except for one thing, which will be a spoiler I'll mark as such in the last paragraph of this review. It was as though Christie made up her mind to make this a very thorough departure from the usual plot, and had some fun playing with her serial killer.

She also had fun with her secondary characters. A few of them – one victim's sister, another's niece, the official investigators – were lovely, with a surprising amount of life for minor characters in a fairly short book. I liked the attitudes taken toward the string of crimes. Poirot is grave; Hastings is confused (no surprise there); Japp and the other professional investigators are grimly determined to stop this string of sequential murders before it gets too far into the alphabet. "I", they figure. Hopefully "H". They're just being realistic, but the apparent callousness of it is breathtaking, like the tv crime shows where the detectives are seen joking over the corpse (*cough*Rizzoli and Isles*cough*).

The solution is the part that bothered me – and here comes a big fat spoiler (though it's who the killer is not rather than who it is). (view spoiler) When the breaks turn out to be not so much a red herring as a red humpback whale, I just feel like Dame Agatha was snickering up her cardigan sleeve at me.

All in all, though, this was more fun than I expected, and made me glad I've picked up a healthy stock of Christies to fill in any gaps in my reading schedule. As if there were any of those. ...more

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Nov 05, 2007 Bronwyn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-detective-suspense, read-multiple-times, title-a-i, european, audiobook, author-a-i, 2018-reads, by-women, series

This is a good one. It was one of my first Christies I don't remember when and got me into Poirot. I really like the set up and reveal. Really well done. ...more

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Mar 01, 2019 Susan in NC rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: want-to-reread, christie

Very much enjoyed this reread - Poirot is back with Hastings in tow! Japp even makes an appearance as a serial killer taunts Poirot to try and catch him, sending letters with warnings of the date and location of each murder.

I only read this one once before, but it was so many years ago, I had forgotten the very satisfying twist at the end - Poirot got me again! So much fun, I’m really enjoying these Poirot rereads with the Reading the Detectives group.

3 likes · Like · see review

Jun 25, 2009 Jan C rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, england

Enjoyable. I've read this several times. I guess I'm not very critical of Agatha Christie. Even if she is not totally on her game, she's still better than most of the rest. And she was so prolific.

It's always a pleasure to see the "little grey cells" at work.

The prime suspect here is kind of a dunderhead and yet appears to have pulled off an almost brilliant crime wave, plus he has taunted Hercule all the way. Hercule wonders if two opposite positions can in fact be present in one human being. ...more

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Mar 25, 2017 Nanosynergy rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: series, mysteries-thrillers-espionage, british, 2017read, fiction-1930s, fiction, reviewed

Some madman is apparently randomly killing people alphabetically (by the person's name and the town they live in) in towns listed in the large A.B.C. railway listing and writing Hercule Poirot to taunt him that he cannot stop or prevent these murders. People continue to die and Poirot's little grey cells are failing to stop them from happening. ...more

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Mar 04, 2009 Laura Anne rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, british-isles

2025 Series Re-read: The serial killer plot makes this a memorable standout in the Poirot series.

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Feb 25, 2013 Carol Evans rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, audio-book

A good mystery, while not my favorite of Christie's, certainly worth reading.

I like the plot in this one particularly. Christie rarely writes of serial killers. Motive is so important in her novels, and killing just to draw attention, to taunt Poirot, for the sport of it, is not usually her thing. What I like here is how she takes a traditional motive and wraps an elaborate mystery around it. It's a case of not seeing the single tree due to the forest. The killer is a very calculating man, not t ...more

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