Thirteen at Dinner [Hardcover]

Agatha Christie (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Bantam Books (1988)
• ISBN-10: 0553350765
• ISBN-13: 978-0553350760
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #763,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shows the Genius of Agatha Christie, February 17, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Thirteen at Dinner (Winterbrook Edition) (Hardcover)

Thirteen at dinner is an excellent book that young adults and adults would especially enjoy. I found it hard to put this book down. It is about the famous detective Hercule Poirot (a very popular character in the Agatha Christie series) who helps his friend Detective Japp on a very strange murder case. It seems that the wealthy Lord Edgware of well-known Regent Gate has been murdered and all evidence is apparently pointing to his wife, actress Jane Wilkinson. Poirot sets out to find out what has happened and finds the surprising truth. He asks himself questions (Who suppressed the letter? What induced Lord Edgware to change his mind about divorce? Who rang Jane Wilkinson up while at dinner at Chiswick?), which help him solve this and all of his cases. In the last few pages, Poirot describes step by step what really has happened. The resolution is both surprising and clever. Agatha Christie has done a great job both making the plot interesting and making people love and look up to the amazing Hercule Poirot. His character has obviously been thought out carefully as was the rest of the book. This book really shows the genius on Christie's part, and I have no idea how she came up with this smart and well put together plot. This book has made me want to read all of her books about Hercule Poirot. I also thought it was smart to make Poirot's assistant, Captain Hastings, the main voice. This made Poirot seem much more mysterious since the reader doesn't know what is going on inside his head. I would recommend this book to anybody who even just likes mysteries because it is one of the better books I have ever read.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Detective Story Shows the Genius of Christie, April 26, 2001

By 

Antoinette Klein (Hoover, Alabama USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thirteen at Dinner (Winterbrook Edition) (Hardcover)

Agatha Christie enters the world of the London theater in this novel, making most of the characters actors and actresses. Jane Wilkinson, a beautiful and popular actress, is in private life the wife of Lord Edgware. The marriage has never been happy, and now Jane wants to divorce Edgware and marry another man. She asks Poirot to intercede for her with her husband and get him to agree to the divorce. When Poirot meets with Lord Edgware he finds the baron very agreeable and says he has informed his wife of this previously in a letter. Jane insists she never received the letter, but is thrilled at the news.

A problem arises when Lord Edgware is killed that very evening and several witnesses testify that Jane was present at the home at the time of the murder. Twelve other reliable witnesses can attest to the fact that she was with them at a dinner party that evening and could not possibly have killed her husband.

Add to this plot a visiting American actress who does impersonations, a letter with a torn page, a pair of pince-nez, a chance remark by two strangers, a luncheon conversation about Paris, and Poirot solves the case in brilliant form proving his genius and why Agatha Christie is the undisputed mistress of mystery

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vintage Christie, August 7, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Lord Edgware Dies (Paperback)

The epitome of an Agatha Christie mystery and one of her five finest books. Hercule Poirot is at his most brilliant, along with sidekick Arthur "Dr. Watson" Hastings and a colorful assortment of suspects. An excellent choice as a first Christie book -- or as a second, or a third....