While Agatha Christie is certainly the queen of mystery writers, her puzzles involving international political intrigues are not the strongest novels in her repertoire. Such is the case with "The Big Four" a disjointed Hercule Poirot novel that finds the famed Belgian sleuth trying to identify and defeat the nefarious schemes of an international group that calls itself the Big Four. Narrated by Captain Hastings, this Agatha Christie mystery is a quick and pleasant read, but definitely not one of her best.
The novel begins with Captain Hastings, Poirot's former sidekick who has been living in South America, returning to England to pay a surprise visit to his friend. Imagine his surprise when he discovers that Poirot is on his way to South American for an investigation, but before he leaves Poirot realizes that the trip is merely a ruse to get him out of the country. What follows is a prolonged game of cat and mouse as Hastings and Poirot try to uncover the identities and plots of the Big Four. Each side trades victories before everything comes to a unique climax that sees Hercule Poirot a changed man.
In her autobiography Christie mentioned that "The Big Four" originally began as a series of short stores and that she refashioned them to work as a novel. It is still very easy to see the short story element in each chapter, its own little puzzle that is solved but always connected to the Big Four, which accounts for its disjointed nature. While a pleasant read with some intriguing solutions to the many problems that Hastings and Poirot face, "The Big Four" is definitely not up to Christie's usual par.Get more detail about The Big Four.
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