Elephants Can Remember (Hercule Poirot) [Mass Market Paperback]

Agatha Christie (Author)

Book Description

Series: Hercule Poirot | Publication Date: January 6, 2004

With the help of Detective Poirot, mystery writer Ariadne Oliver must solve a murder from her past--before the tragic piece of history repeats itself.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Did General Ravenscroft kill Lady Ravenscroft or was she the one holding the gun? Many years later their daughter would like to know, so her godmother, Ariadne Oliver, asks Hercule Poirot to investigate. Working in tandem, Mrs. Oliver and Poirot identify and interview an ever-increasing list of witnesses (the elephants of the title). Poirot painstakingly reconstructs long-vanished relationships, and his deductions eventually lead him to one final witness. Even the great Christie recycled concepts from time to time; this mystery is one of several "remembered death" titles, characterized by long, descriptive conversations that can be tedious. In this case the contrast between Poirot's severe, analytical style and that of the charming but erratic Mrs. Oliver adds life to what would otherwise be a rather dull tale. John Moffatt delivers the competent if unexciting reading one expects from this producer. Christie at her worst (which this is not) is still better than most mystery writers. Recommended for all mid- to large-sized libraries.DI. Pour-El, Des Moines Area Community Coll., Boone, IA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

'Splendid!she tells us all we want to know and nothing that is irrelevant.' The Times 'The acknowledged queen of detective fiction.' The Observer --This text refers to the Unknown Binding edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Berkley; Open market ed edition (January 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425067823
• ISBN-13: 978-2830211665
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,023,343 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #75 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Authors, A-Z > ( C ) > Christie, Agatha

More About the Author

Agatha Christie was born in 1890 and created the detective Hercule Poirot in her debut novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920). She achieved wide popularity with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) and produced a total of eighty novels and short-story collections over six decades.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Confusing murder in retrospect mystery, May 2, 2004

By 

Geert Daelemans (Leuven Belgium) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Elephants Can Remember (Hercule Poirot) (Mass Market Paperback)

Celia Ravenscroft is but a little girl when both her parents commit suicide. Never did she worry about the real reasons for that dramatic event, until today when she stands on the verge of getting married to Desmond Burton-Cox. Only one question suddenly seems of importance: Who killed whom, Celia's father or mother? Reason enough for Ariadne Oliver, Celia's godmother, to pay a visit to her old friend Hercule Poirot. The famous sleuth persuades Mrs. Oliver to delve -with his guidance, of course- into the past, to find the persons who are like elephants, the persons who will still remember the important details about this all-but-forgotten tragedy.

Elephants Can Remember is Agatha Christie's next to last work of detection and the author shows clearly signs of age, which is understandable since she was eighty-two years old and in failing health.

Elephants Can Remember is a "murder in retrospect" mystery. Although Christie has proven to fully master this format -see Sparkling Cyanide and Five Little Pigs- she now quickly looses touch with the story. She is forced to sow the narrative together with vague memories of a series of old spinsters and suddenly even events that should easily be remembered are covered by the veil of forgetfulness. No surprise that the plot is total confusion. It is less a mystery than a scrapbook of memories. Action is less important than atmosphere, which makes the story quite tedious and difficult to hang on to. Nevertheless, the experienced reader will figure out the solution to this not too mysterious mystery halfway through the book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What the Dog Noticed, July 28, 2007

By 

R. Chaffey "beckahi" (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Elephants Can Remember (Hercule Poirot) (Mass Market Paperback)

"Elephants Can Remember" does not read like a typical Hercule Poirot mystery. Agatha Christie's famed detective is drawn into an old case by his friend, the amateur sleuth and mystery writer Ariadne Oliver. The case involves what was apparently the double suicide of a loving husband and wife, and the concern that these past actions might have left a horrible impact upon their children.

The story switches between the findings of Ariadne Oliver and Hercule Poirot as they each go in search of 'elephants' who might remember what happened around the time of the accident, because after all, an elephant never forgets. While there is no definite evidence as to what happened, there are those who have never accepted the double suicide theory because they couldn't answer the question why. But with Poirot and Mrs. Oliver working together, a long-unspoken truth is certain to be uncovered.

"Elephants Can Remember" is classic Agatha Christie, in terms of mystery. It's central mystery has a unique, if perhaps a little predictable, twist, the denouement of which is quite evenly paced and satisfactory. However, this might be one novel where the time period of the plot is more glaring than others. The prose is heavy-handed at times and one does get a little sick of all the mentions of 'elephants'. The characters are borderline two-dimensional and, therefore, the reader does not care about them, even if they are still interested in the mystery at hand.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Egregiously Bad, Monumentally Boring, and No Mystery, October 23, 2005

By 

Alexander Avenarius (Bratislava, Slovakia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Elephants Can Remember (Mystery Masters) (Audio CD)

This must be the worst Agatha Christie book ever. It's her very last Hercule Poirot novel, and one can see that the writer is very old by now (82). There is no freshness left in her prose; it is stale, predictable, corny, and generally trashy. As other reviewers have said, the material contained here would barely be enough to sustain a short story. To make a full-length novel out of this really is ridiculous. The book fails at what normally is Agatha Christie's greatest strength: the plot and the denouement. With dozens of pages left to go, the reader *knows* the solution! Unheard of in the world of Christie; if for nothing else, then for this the novel cannot be rated higher than 1 star. However, the characters and dialogs are boring and cliche-ridden as well, so the book has no redeeming qualities either. Nothing ever happens on the 200 pages of this book; no crime, no mystery, no real conflict among characters; it's all just endlessly boring talk, talk, and nothing but talk about the past. The only interesting thing, perhaps, is to contemplate the autobiographical hints Christie gives us in describing one of the novel's detectives, Ariadne Oliver -- a mystery writer. But these hints are only interesting because they throw light on our favourite writer, Agatha Christie -- they are not interesting in themselves and therefore do not improve the book's literary quality. It was excruciating to have to wade through the turgid prose of this book; this title cannot be recommended to anyone except extreme Christie enthusiasts.