Title: Mrs McGinty's Dead
Author: Agatha Christie
Publisher: Harper Collins
Publisher: Harper Collins
Pages: 240
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
I’ve always considered
Hercule Poirot’s lines to be worthy of compilation into a separate book of their
own. They have so much charm.
In this book, we
are back with the great Belgian detective. The Cast of Characters section
informs those who have never had the pleasure of meeting Poirot that there are
only two things in life he took seriously: the study of crime and his
stomach.
When Poirot first
comes to know of the murder of the widow, Mrs McGinty, an elderly small-time
charwoman, he thinks it had not been an interesting murder.
Mrs McGinty had
been cleaning at the homes of nearly all the large houses in the village. The weapon
used to bash her head in is never found, but the 30 pounds that she had hidden
beneath the floorboards in her house leads the police to suspect her paying guest,
James Bentley who is sentenced to death.
But the superintendent
is unconvinced of Bentley’s guilt, even though all clues point that way. He requests
Poirot to take on the case, and either confirm or disprove Bentley’s guilt.
When he first
makes the claim that he is closing in on the culprit, it appears to be an
egotistical claim. But then we see how he closes in on the culprit. Drawing
them all out together for the final denouement, he begins by suspecting them
all one by one, and they are all certainly worthy of suspicion. In true
Christie style, everyone has something to hide.
I like the way we
find ourselves suspecting every character but the right one. How Christie makes
the real killer hide in plain sight.
One line from the book that stood out for me:
Authors were shy,
unsociable creatures, atoning for their lack of social aptitude by inventing their
own companions and conversations.
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