19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Poirot's early career in London, March 23, 2002
This review is from: The Under Dog and Other Stories (Mystery Masters) (Audio CD)
The stories herein first appeared in various magazines; they're sorted here by original publication date rather than order of appearance in the book.
"The King of Clubs" - (March, 1923) Valerie Saintclair, the famous dancer, has just been all over the papers, having discovered the murdered body of Henry Reedburn. Prince Paul of Maurania comes to Poirot, since he proposes to marry her, saying (in one breath), "We are living now in more enlightened days, free from the old caste prejudices," while *also* saying that 1) it'll be a morganatic marriage (i.e., the children would be out of the succession), and 2) it doesn't matter because she's actually the daughter of a Russian grand duchess. (He says that she's bound to secrecy, but has let him guess that much).
In other words, Prince Paul is a pompous idiot, who half-suspects Mlle. Saintclair of murdering Reedburn, based on her reaction to a fortuneteller's card reading turning up the king of clubs (a fearsome man holding her in his power), and he's hiring Poirot to find out what really happened. (If you have even a passing acquaintance with that method of fortunetelling, incidentally, don't let Christie's misuse of terms distract you from the facts of the case.)
"The Affair at the Victory Ball" - (March, 1923) The Victory in question was the end of WW I. Young Lord Cronshaw and his fiancee Coco Courtenay attended the ball with several friends, all dressed as characters from the Italian Comedy, he as Harlequin, she as Columbine, and both died that night, she from a cocaine overdose in her flat, he with a table knife through his heart at the ball. (There are no Quin or Satterthwaite appearances, incidentally, despite the Harlequin references.) This story is that rare animal, a Christie creation that pauses and offers a challenge to the reader before revealing the solution.
"The Plymouth Express" - (April, 1923) Flossie Halliday Carrington, soon-to-be ex wife of the Honourable Rupert Carrington, who married her for her father's money, was found murdered during a train journey, and her father has hired Poirot to find the killer (he wants his own man, not just the usual police investigation). This story strongly resembles _The Mystery of the Blue Train_, but the actual puzzle (i.e. who/how/why) isn't really the same, so don't be misled.
"The Market Basing Mystery" - (October, 1923) Japp, Hastings, and Poirot are spending a weekend on holiday in Market Basing, and Japp is called in on a local locked-room mystery. This case bears a striking resemblance to another locked-room case, "Murder in the Mews"; see the book of the same name if you'd like to compare them.
"The Adventure of the Clapham Cook" - (November, 1923) The cook in question, a middle-aged, respectable, plain woman working in a private household, quit without a word of warning; no formal complaints, no quarrel with the only other staff member. She just went out on her day off, never came back, and sent for her trunk (not even formally resigning). Her now-ex employer wants to find her, since it's *very* fishy, and good cooks are hard to come by.
"The Cornish Mystery" - (November, 1923) Mrs. Pengelley, a plain, ordinary woman of about 50, is afraid that her husband is slowly poisoning her - whenever he's away, her 'gastritis' gets better, the weed-killer is running low, and he's got a young blond hussy of an assistant. (He's the one with the money, though.) Poirot finds it interesting, partly because of Mrs. Pengelley's unusual reaction to her suspicions; but his arrival in Cornwall the day after she hires him, it turns out, is too late. The general framework of the story resembles at least 3 other Christie stories, one quite strongly (each for a different detective), but they differ in detail, so don't jump to any conclusions.
"The Submarine Plans" - (November, 1923) - Same story as "The Incredible Theft" in _Dead Man's Mirror_; Christie did a little revision, but not enough to make it a different story.
"The Lemesurier Inheritance" - (December, 1923) This case begins with a chance meeting during WWI between Poirot, Hastings, and Captain Vincent Lemesurier, on the night that Vincent receives word that his father is dying of injuries received in a riding accident. The family has a tradition, dating back to the middle ages, that no eldest son of a Lemesurier will ever inherit - and sure enough, Vincent takes a misstep on the train home, and the next in line inherits. Several times over the next few years, one member or another of the family dies: an allergic reaction to a wasp sting here, a shooting accident there. Finally, Mrs. Hugo Lemesurier comes to Poirot and Hastings: her husband, now terminally ill, has a morbid belief that his eldest son won't outlive him. For her part, she doesn't believe that a curse could saw through a vine under the nursery window that the kids like to climb out of. Compare this one with "The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb" in _Poirot Investigates_, as 2 examples of Poirot's theory of the power of superstition.
"The Under Dog" - (October, 1926) Mercifully, in my opinion, we don't have Hastings narrating this one, although he relates all the other stories in this volume. Hot-tempered Sir Reuben Astwell has been found murdered in his country home, his head smashed with a club in his own study. (Some of the family have travelled in Africa; the club was part of the decor). His fortune is divided between Lady Astwell and his ineffectual nephew Charles. Charles, a failure in business who drinks, is the prime suspect, but Lady Astwell insists that Owen Trefusis, the browbeaten little secretary, did it, and engages Poirot to uncover the truth.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Early Poirot Stories, November 14, 2011
It's interesting that this anthology of Agatha Christie's early Hercule Poirot short stories has remained unadulterated through several reprints over the years. A prolific writer's shorter works are often shuffled and reshuffled for successive anthologies. I just read a crumbling Dell edition from the late 1950s/early 1960s (the price on the cover is 45¢), and the table of contents is consistent with other editions under this title. Together, this particular set of stories collects early markers of Poirot style and themes. It would be ripe for a critical introduction, because the stories are apparently plunked unedited from their original appearance. The novella length title story, "The Under Dog," is narrated in the 3rd person, but the rest are narrated by Poirot's friend Hastings--if you are not familiar with other Poirot stories narrated by Hastings, you may be at a loss for wondering to whom the voice belongs at first. There is a pause about three-quarters of the way through in one of the stories with an insert signed "the editors" that suggests the reader stop right there, formulate a guess as to the solution and then read on to see if it pans out. None of the others do that, so I'm assuming that is a leftover device from the magazine in which it originally appeared.
The stories are mostly fine, vintage Christie. She was obviously enjoying herself. I did not fully appreciate the debt Christie owed Sherlock Holmes for Hercule Poirot until I read this group together, the confident, eccentric detective and the play along friend/narrator. And one of the stories, "The Lemesurier Inheritance" has a Sherlock Gothicism going for it. That said, you can see Poirot and Christie bursting out on their own, creating a measurable distance from Holmes and the 19th century.
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