Customer Reviews

Five Little Pigs (Hercule Poirot)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

... but it's almost guaranteed that, as always with Dame Agatha, you just can't see the inevitable soon enough but only in the last pages. The story is partly told in retrospect, in letters from those involved in the drama. The Great Detective is motivated to investigate a suspicious death of painter Amyas Crale, apparently a womanizer. At the beginning everything looks clear. But Amyas' daughter, although years have passed since the death of her father, is not so sure about the guilt of her mother, who was sentenced for the crime, and asks Poirot to help. This is one of the more psychologically-based Poirot novels, not too suspensful, but the ending is as surprising as ever and sheds a whole new light on the seemingly clear drama. And, as the title indicates, it's one of those Christie speciality novels where a murder takes place according to a nursery rhyme (And Then There Were None and One, Two, Buckle My Shoe are two other good examples of this).

Five Little Pigs follows Hercule Poirot as he tries to solve a murder from sixteen years in the past. A young woman comes to him and tells him the story of her parents. It seems that her mother was convicted of the murder of her father and died in prison a year later. The young lady was just a little girl at the time but she strongly believes that her mother was innocent and wants Poirot to prove it. Poirot then approaches the five key witnesses one at a time and interviews them about the events surrounding the murder to piece together what happened.

In some respects, this is a very typical Poirot novel. The murder occurs at an estate, there are a relative handful of people who could have done it, etc. But Christies attempted a major change in structure by setting the murder sixteen years in the past. I wish I could say that this was more effective but there were some very negative ramifications of this choice. First, readers must read descriptions of the same events, almost word for word, several times over as Poirot hears from each witness in turn. These conversations and events are not sufficiently fascinating to make this enjoyable. Second, in many of these interviews, there is a definite detachment to the narrative due to the amount of time that has passed. Despite the tempestuous nature of the husband/wife relationship this makes for a story that has no real emotional core. Third, a lot of the natural interplay between characters is lost and the worst casualty in this regard in Poirot himself. I always love his little observations and interjections during a case. These often come in moments of high tension and his humor is all the more effective at those times. But in these formal interviews, most of the opportunities for his little asides are lost and what is here lacks the usual bite.

Overall, I didn't find Five Little Pigs to be one of Agatha Christie's better efforts. The decision to place the murder sixteen years in the past was an interesting one but it robbed the story of a lot of its impact. This book also sports one of her weaker casts. The two most interesting characters (the victim and murderess) are present only in narrative provided by others and lose a great deal of their vitality in the process. Granted, this is not Christie's worst novel and it is still an adequate read. But I would recommend this book to true fans and not to first time readers. Hercule Poirot appeared in some truly great novels, but this is not one of them.

I have always been a bit torn over this book. The underlying plot and the solution and reasoning the Poirot comes up with is rather fascinating, but the retrospective format of the book makes it a tough read at times. I am a Christie fan, but this is certainly not one of her better books.

In this book Poirot is engaged by a young lady whose mother was convicted of murdering her father some years ago. The child grew up with relatives, and was too young to remember the incident at the time. When she comes of age, she finds out the "truth" and wants Poirot to clear her mothers name before she gets married. The reminder of the book is mostly composed of either written accounts of the murder, or interviews with the principal characters. The problem is that much of the information is almost given twice, in that Poirot interviews the subjects, and then has them provide a written account. The book moves slowly, and is really not very interesting even when Christie throws out some obvious clues. The one thing about this book is that the mystery is very solvable by the reader. I head guessed at least some of the major points before the classic Poirot wrap-up. I did, however, still find the final solution interesting and Poirot's reasoning interesting as well.

Overall, not a great Poirot book, but not a waste of time!

I recently started to enjoy the Poirot audiobooks and this one was no exception. A man is found poisoned and his wife had been blamed because everyone thought she killed him because of his lover. Her daughter now wants Poirot to clear her mothers name years later. This is a well written tale with a great twist at the end. The reader High Fraser is always a pleasure for the Poirot audiobooks.

Five Little Pigs follows Hercule Poirot as he tries to solve a murder from sixteen years in the past. A young woman comes to him and tells him the story of her parents. It seems that her mother was convicted of the murder of her father and died in prison a year later. The young lady was just a little girl at the time but she strongly believes that her mother was innocent and wants Poirot to prove it. Poirot then approaches the five key witnesses one at a time and interviews them about the events surrounding the murder to piece together what happened.

In some respects, this is a very typical Poirot novel. The murder occurs at an estate, there are a relative handful of people who could have done it, etc. But Christies attempted a major change in structure by setting the murder sixteen years in the past. I wish I could say that this was more effective but there were some very negative ramifications of this choice. First, readers must read descriptions of the same events, almost word for word, several times over as Poirot hears from each witness in turn. These conversations and events are not sufficiently fascinating to make this enjoyable. Second, in many of these interviews, there is a definite detachment to the narrative due to the amount of time that has passed. Despite the tempestuous nature of the husband/wife relationship this makes for a story that has no real emotional core. Third, a lot of the natural interplay between characters is lost and the worst casualty in this regard in Poirot himself. I always love his little observations and interjections during a case. These often come in moments of high tension and his humor is all the more effective at those times. But in these formal interviews, most of the opportunities for his little asides are lost and what is here lacks the usual bite.

Overall, I didn't find Five Little Pigs to be one of Agatha Christie's better efforts. The decision to place the murder sixteen years in the past was an interesting one but it robbed the story of a lot of its impact. This book also sports one of her weaker casts. The two most interesting characters (the victim and murderess) are present only in narrative provided by others and lose a great deal of their vitality in the process. Granted, this is not Christie's worst novel and it is still an adequate read. But I would recommend this book to true fans and not to first time readers. Hercule Poirot appeared in some truly great novels, but this is not one of them.

A young woman approaching him with a problem is nothing new to Monsieur Hercule Poirot, but what is new is that she wants him to investigate a murder that occurred 16 years ago. It seems that in a famous murder trial, her mother was found guilty of murdering her father, and the young woman wants the great detective to find out the truth of the case. It is a challenge most difficult, one that Poirot cannot refuse!

Overall, I found this to be a pretty good book. It is a good, solid Hercule Poirot mystery. It does, sadly, have several rather debilitating problems. First of all, the author keeps Monsieur Poirot's interaction with the other characters to a minimum, allowing most of the evidence to be presented to him in written form. This does tend to limit the main character's ability to shine in the story.

Secondly, I must confess that I found the ending rather anticlimactic and unfulfilling. Yes, I am sure that it was the most realistic way to have the story end, but that does not mean that it was the most interesting way to end it.

As an Agatha Christie fan, I must say that I am glad to have read a Hercule Poirot story that I have never read before. But, I wasn't thrilled with it, and I doubt that I will ever read the story again.

Five Little Pigs was published in 1942 during the period when Agatha Christie (1890-1976) was writing at the top of her murderous genius. The novel is the first of a quartet of novels in which the original murder being investigated occurred in the past. In this case it was 16 years prior to the time when Hercule Poirot stepped in and solved the case.
The Plot: Carla Lemarchant,a young Canadian woman planning on being married in the near future, visits England to hire Hercule Poirot. Sixteen years in the past her mother Caroline had been arrested for the murder of her husband Amyas Crale. Crale was a famous painter. His poisoned body was found in the garden of his estate Hardcross Manor in Devonshire. The five suspects (hence the "five pigs" designation) are:
Phillip Blake-The best friend of the victim. Blake is a businessman. He tells Poirot that Mrs. Crale was guilty.
Meredith Blake-Phillip's brother who informs Poirot that Amyas Crale was having an affair with Elsa Greer a sexpot who was several years his junior. "Merry" is an expert on herbs and poisons.
Elsa Greer-the much married wealthy woman who was Crale's lover. She was posing for Crale on the September day when the painter was found dead after drinking a cold beer.
Cecilia Williams-the elderly nursemaid for Carolyn Crale's half sister. She believes in Mrs. Crale's innocence, (Mrs. Crale died in prison).
Angela Warren-The half-siter of Mrs Crayle. Mrs Crayle through a paperweight at Angela causing her to be blind in one eye. Every since this childhood act of violence Mrs. Crale has taken good care of her Miss Warren.
What makes this Christie thriller of special note is:
a. Each of the five suspects writes a summary of the events surrounding the murder. This summary is turned into Hercule Poirot for perusal.The Belgian master of crime who studies these reports in great detail enabling him to solve the crime.
b.The characters are more three dimensional and interesting than in many of Christie's stories were the suspects are cardboard thin in charactereization.
c. The novel is well written and suspensful.
This is one of the best Hercule Poirot novels. Excellent reading!

I have always been a bit torn over this book. The underlying plot and the solution and reasoning the Poirot comes up with is rather fascinating, but the retrospective format of the book makes it a tough read at times. I am a Christie fan, but this is certainly not one of her better books.

In this book Poirot is engaged by a young lady whose mother was convicted of murdering her father some years ago. The child grew up with relatives, and was too young to remember the incident at the time. When she comes of age, she finds out the "truth" and wants Poirot to clear her mothers name before she gets married. The reminder of the book is mostly composed of either written accounts of the murder, or interviews with the principal characters. The problem is that much of the information is almost given twice, in that Poirot interviews the subjects, and then has them provide a written account. The book moves slowly, and is really not very interesting even when Christie throws out some obvious clues. The one thing about this book is that the mystery is very solvable by the reader. I head guessed at least some of the major points before the classic Poirot wrap-up. I did, however, still find the final solution interesting and Poirot's reasoning interesting as well.

Overall, not a great Poirot book, but not a waste of time!

I received the book I ordered, on time and in excellent condition. Thank you for your prompt response. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. A good mystery!

I've been reading Agatha Christie books for about three decades now, and this is one of my favorites (hard to choose any one as THE favorite). I've always enjoyed looking at an event from history from multiple points of view, and then figuring out which take is the correct one, or, as is more likely, which pieces of each tale are correct. That's what Christie does with this story, having the witnesses search their memories of what happened so long ago, and relate their memories to Poirot. The solution was ingenious (as is typical with Christie), and one that I truly did not see coming. A highly enjoyable read!