Customer Reviews

Three Act Tragedy (The Christie Collection)

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4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(13)
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THREE ACT TRAGEDY is one of my favorite "Hercule Poirot" novels. Its characters are intriguing, and the solution to the crime is amazingly clever. Agatha Christie establishes an atmosphere of foreboding in the very first chapter, as the likeable Mr. Satterthwaite (who here fills the role of the absent Captain Hastings) sits on the terrace of the Crows Nest resort, remarking on the personalities and the actions of the people around him, who include the retired actor Sir Charles Cartwright and the respected doctor Sir Bartholemew Strange. From here, the novel takes the form of a "tragedy in three acts," with a new murder in each act and a series of clues, both real and "staged." While some readers may be disappointed to find that the great Poirot is absent from the novel for chapters at a time, there is good reason for this -- and he does indeed play a starring role in the "final act." I believe that anyone who loves Christie and Poirot will love THREE ACT TRAGEDY.

The central characters of this mystery are an aging actor, his twentysomething admirer, and a man who often observes but seldom participates. The three join forces to solve the murders of a physician and a priest. They interview the suspects, conduct meetings, compare notes, and all the while a May-December romance brews between the actor and the youngish female admirer.

Hercule Poirot appears sporadically through the course of the book, but takes no active part in the investigation until the denouement. When a third murder occurs, all the pieces fall into place, and Poirot is able to identify the killer in dramatic fashion.

The mystery is neat, well crafted, and satisfying. The identity of the murderer comes as quite a surprise, and Poirot turns in his usual virtuoso performance. The plot, however, suffers from Poirot's extended absence, and the story has a glacial pace. It took forever to slog through the soporific first two acts.

An interesting revelation comes at the end of the book. Poirot fans know him as a boastful, eccentric dandy whose mastery of the King's English is far from masterful. He has this to say about himself: "It is true that I can speak the exact, the idiomatic English. But, my friend, to speak the broken English is an enormous asset. It leads people to despise you. They say, 'A foreigner. He can't even speak English properly.' It is not my policy to terrify people. Instead, I invite their gentle ridicule. Also, I boast. An Englishman, he says 'A fellow who thinks as much of himself as that cannot be worth much.' That is the English point of view. It is not at all true. And so, you see, I put people off their guard. Besides, it has become a habit."

Call me daft, but i really really like this Christie novel.

The characters are great (especially the sublime Mr Satterthwaite, and the wonderfully entertaining Hermoine "Egg" Lytton Gore). Really entertaining, and great to read about. As with many of the best Poirot novels, Poirot himself does not really take a large role until quite a way into the book ("Appointment With Death" "Cat and Among the Pigeons", for example.)

The plot is great, and the motive for the first motive is just sheer originality. (Even though it, and the motives for the other murders, is just a tiny weeny bit thin).

It's a pretty light Christie book, but with a brilliant first death and motive for it. And a great, rather unexpected solution. It may not be her very very best novel, but it is still one of the great ones.

In murders, nothing should be taken for granted. Especially Agatha Christie's. In several of her novels, she had the investigators looking into a murder that did not exist, a person that did not exist, a motive that did not exist and many other red herrings.

Hence, when the good Rev Stephen Babbington died during a party thrown by retired actor Sir Charles Cartwright, none of the guests present appeared to be who they were supposed to be. There was no motive, nothing was left to show the death was a criminal act.

Some time later, Dr Strange who was also a guest at the party died, this time, the nicotine poisoning was clear.

Told primarily from the perspective of Sir Charles Cartwright, his friend Mr Satterwaithte, and modern girl "Egg" Hermione Lytton Gore, Hercule Poirot took the passive role most of the story. The other three went about gathering clues, examining scenes of the crime and interviewing the usual suspects.

The only problem with such an approach could be revealed by one of Christie's favourite dogma : people do not tell what they saw or heard, they tell what they thought they saw or heard.

In many instances, it was merely written Sir Charles, Mr Satterwaithe and Egg reported what had happened to Poirot rather than describing the words they used to convey the information to Poirot. Therein lies one of the weakness of this book.

A second weakness of the book was some of the offstage investigation work done by Poirot was not revealed to the readers. In stories where the clues for opportunities and accessories were (subtly) evident, motive was not as vital for the readers to correctly guess the solution. However, this story was weak in all but the opportunities department. Only the camouflaged opportunities was masterfully done by Christie for both deaths, requiring people to consider things in the opposite of the conventional direction.

"Three Act Tragedy" (also published as "Murder in Three Acts") is a satisfying and unique Christie mystery that involves the great Hercule Poirot coming out of retirement. The reason is a case that almost stumps him completely. A murder occurs at a cocktail party, but Poirot does not believe it was a murder for who would want to murder a kindly old vicar? Plenty of clues and misdirections ensue as Poirot finds himself changing directions only to be pitted against an unscrupulous murderer.

The only person convinced that a murder occured is the famous actor, Sir Charles Cartwright. Poirot agrees with him when Sir Bartholomew, who was also at that cocktail party, dies in the same way. Poirot sits on the sidelines as Sir Charles, his friend Mr. Satterthwaite, and Hermione "Egg" Gore (the young woman hopelessly in love with Sir Charles) try to figure out the connection between the two murders and who committed them. It must have been someone who was at both parties. Could it really be the mysterious butler who has seemingly vanished into thin air? What did Sir Bartholomew know that meant he must be silenced? Poirot and these amateur sleuths must find out the truth before the murderer strikes again.

"Three Act Tragedy" is a fast-paced read, but it gets off to a bit of a confusing start. The misdirections and red herrings are not quite enough to throw an intrepid reader off the scent of the guilty party, yet the ending to the mystery is satisfying and will certainly stump some. The conclusion is a bit rushed but manages to end on a high and somewhat funny note.

Ms. Christie's ninth Hercule Poirot mystery is a wonderful whodunit. The author has a clean, crisp writing style which moves the story along very well. This one is presented in the third-person narrative. The famous, colorful Poirot doesn't play a significant part until two-thirds of the way into the book. I liked the fact that, in the last few paragraphs, Ms. Christie explains the reason for a few of the detective's personality quirks. M. Poirot has a calculated excuse for his idiosyncratic qualities. I was able to figure out the culprit, but that only makes two out of the first nine Hercule Poirot stories. A fast, fun read by one of the world's greatest mystery writers.

Retired actor Sir Charles Cartwright throws a party and a clergyman dies. Accidental, perhaps? When nearly the same group of people meets again and another of their number dies in a very similar manner, an accident seems rather less likely. Sir Cartwright, an aged friend and a young starstruck woman set out to investigate the situation with a little help behind the scenes from Hercule Poirot.

Three Act Tragedy is in many ways a very typical Agatha Christie mystery. We are given a seemingly impossible murder and a limited group of potential murderers, each paradoxically suspicious and unlikely. Though not always unique in structuring her novels, Christie always changes things up enough to keep her fans interested. In this novel the theme of appearances provides a primary focus and a mild love story provides comic interludes. This book was, for me, no more than an average Christie novel with a characteristically twisted conclusion. It will certainly bring joy and bewilderment to fans of Christie, but is not among her finest.

A nice little Hercule Poirot mystery - actually, it's only barely a Poirot mystery, as he is absent from most of the book, making only a guest appearence at the beginning, and in the last section, he comes to wrap things up. The plot itself is rather simple, and you could stand a decent chance of guessing the end correctly, if not for a complication Christie throws in which makes things difficult (for the reader as well as for Poirot himself). All in all, a pleasent read. Not her best book, to be sure, but pleasent nonetheless.

One of Agatha Christie's occasional flaws is that her desire to bamboozle the reader leads her to discard probability and possibility, to neglect the human side of the equation, and to produce a solution, which, although surprising, is nevertheless unconvincing. Three Act-Tragedy (1935) and Murder in Mesopotamia (1936) are examples of this-a pity because both books have interesting personages, well-drawn depictions of a particular society (here the demi-monde; an archaeological dig in the other), and a particular tone (light and amusing in the style of Anthony Berkeley in the one; in the other, an ominous atmosphere quite unlike anything else Agatha Christie ever wrote). But the solutions to both are wholly incredible: the reader of Murder in Mesopotamia is expected to believe that a highly observant and intelligent woman is utterly blind to the disguise adopted by her murderer; while Three-Act Tragedy offers an utterly murderer who commits three crimes, two of which are wholly superfluous, tripling the risk of detection to no benefit.

The impossible murders themselves are by nicotine, "an odourless liquid, ...[of which] a few drops are enough to kill a man almost instantaneously", and which can be derived from rose-spraying liquid and from ordinary tobacco. The first victim is a particularly mild and benevolent parson, who is killed at a party given by the actor Sir Charles Cartwright (who suspects murder). The guests include the impoverished Lady Mary Lytton Gore and her daughter `Egg', née Hermione; the actress Angela Sutcliffe, Sir Charles' former lover; the dress-maker Cynthia Dacres (with whose salon L.W.T., maker of the POIROT televison series, would have a great deal of fun) and her drunken husband; the playwright Muriel Wills; and the journalist Oliver Manders, in love with `Egg'. The regular reader of Christie, however, will recognise both Hercule Poirot, who is bored, only begins to function on p. 117, and is staying (for some unknown reason) at the Ritz; and Mr. Satterthwaite, known to the reader from the excellent short story collection The Mysterious Mr. Quin. Both of these sleuths, with the assistance of Sir Charles and `Egg' Lytton Gore, assist in the detection of the crime-but it is, however, only Hercule Poirot who is not taken in by the stage trappings, who "see[s] only the facts without any dramatic trappings or footlights". The second victim is the nerve specialist Sir Bartholomew Strange, killed at a party in Yorkshire, attended by the same people (with the exception of Poirot, Sir Charles, and Mr. Satterthwaite, who are all in France); his butler goes missing, and the clue of an ink-stain on the floor of his room leads to the discovery of blackmail letters and the possibility of his murder. While certainly not one of Christie's best, the reader may still find entertainment in the book (and doesn't have to put up with Peter Ustinov's over-acting and a horde of bad actors loose in Mexico).

One of my favorite Agatha Christie novels. It fooled me as a kid and it keeps fooling me today, because you just can't see around the corner, even if you've read it before. Sir Charles Cartwright has a party in his incredibly stagy seaside bungalow where he has been living since his retirement from the stage a few years back. He devotes his time to village life, to his sailboat, and to Hermione Lytton-Gore, whom her friends call "Egg," one of Christie's heartiest heroines and very independent. Some of the things she comes out with, in the name of romantic frankness, would make a sailor blush. When a harmless old Loomouth clergyman dies at Charles' cocktail party, it's strange, but is murder really an option? Why kill someone so harmless and loveable? There are no financial motives, none of love, none of gain.

Does the answer lie in Babbington's apparently serene past, particular in his long blameless life in Gilling? A committee of four--Cartwright, "Egg," Hercule Poirot and Mr. Satterthwaite (from The Mysterious Mr Quin, here making a welcome return)--attempt to conduct an investigation whose nature changes from chapter to chapter. When another party occurs, and another guest falls down dead, it becomes clear that someone really evil is out there directing the show like a great puppeteer.

This is one of the handful of cases in which Christie's revisions are visible. She published the original novel as a serial, in an American magazine, and her American publisher put it out first. Apparently she had some second thoughts and changed the final chapters of the book considerably, so that when it was published by Collins, the whole end of the book was different, sort of. I can't really decide which one is better, but I think I like the original US version.... The whole thing is top notch, and even if the characters are paper thin, they are still memorable--the playwright Anthony Astor, an insipid milksop whose bearing gives the lie to her savage witty plays; the designer Angela Dacres, who runs an atelier determined to wring every last drop of profit from it; Clara Babbington, the vicar's widow whose gentle sorrow inspires Mr. Satterthwaite to confess his own blighted and melancholy romance....