Unofficial Poirot Buddy Read: 4 SPOILER THREAD: Poirot's early cases

[Jessica-sim]

Well here we are, it's three days in to April already!

Because I'm so late, I'm opening this thread on my mobile phone in a train... Not something I would recommend to do haha I hope to be home tomorrow evening and will then edit the thread so that it neatly resembled the others and sort out the confusion regarding the short stories planned for later this year that I appearently mistook for full blown books.

For now: Know that this month is dedicated to yet another short story collection: Poirot's early cases. I did read these before, so it will be fun to reread and compare the experience. It took me a while to get used go the tone and pace of the short stories we read last month, but they did grow on me.

Let's again try and pace the discussion a bit so that we discuss the first stories in the beginning of the month and save the later ones for next week or so.

Enjoy! :-)

[Jessica-sim]

1. The Affair at the Victory Ball
2. The Adventure of the Clapham Cook
3. The Cornish Mystery
4. The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly
5. The Double Clue
6. The King of Clubs
7. The Lemesurier Inheritance
8. The Lost Mine
9. The Plymouth Express
10. The Chocolate Box
11. The Submarine Plans
12. The Third Floor Flat
13. Double Sin
14. The Market Basing Mystery
15. Wasps' Nest
16. The Veiled Lady
17. Problem at Sea
18. How Does Your Garden Grow?

Let's say, 6 stories per week and a week for overall discussion? Have fun reading!

[Jill]

I liked this first story and thought it quite cleverly done. The second one I had guessed that it was the tin trunk that the robber of the bank was after,rather than the cook. The third one was also to easily guessed as the young man was a pretty suspicious character. The kidnapping of the boy Jonnie was well thought out until the priest hole was found. The Double clue had me guessing, but of coarse no problem for Poirot. The King of Clubs was a surprise.

[Jessica-sim]

Jill wrote: "I liked this first story and thought it quite cleverly done. The second one I had guessed that it was the tin trunk that the robber of the bank was after,rather than the cook. The third one was als..."

I also really liked the first one! A nice little puzzle there and one based on fact: the death by drug overdose of Billie Cartleton, appearantly it was all over the news at the time. (http://www.nickelinthemachine.com/200...)

I enjoyed the second one, because I recently saw the Poirot episode and my mind's eye could still see (and hear) David Suchet say some of the lines word for word.

And that's where I'm at right now.

[Jill]

Thanks for that link Jessica , it was very interesting. I had a friend whose mum worked as a machinist in one of the sweatshops in Limehouse, but my parents always said it was a terrible place and never to go there. I expect they had memories of the bad reputation it had many years ago.

[Jill]

I'm afraid many of these are fading from my memory now. The lost mine is now completely lost to me now. I thought The Chocolate Box was a surprise. The Submarine Plans I thought was cleverly done.

Maybe the next book being a full story will tempt more people to post here, and I'm sure I will find it stays in my memory more than all these short stories have.

[Tara]

I hadn't read these before, but nearly all of them have been adapted in the David Suchet series, so I was familiar with the plots and endings ahead of time. I did enjoy them in spite of that, as you can read a story or two when you don't have time for more in-depth reading. My favorite was Wasps' Nest, as the premise (preventing a murder) was a turn from the majority of cases when the detective is only involved after the crime was committed. I also thought the fact that Poirot's friend was the one he was going to try to prevent from committing a crime, despite being the victim as well, was very intriguing. You wonder how many cases of murder have actually being vindictive suicides in our history.