What do you think?
Rate this book
Audio CD
First published November 1, 1940
I didn¡¯t grow up on a healthy dose of Agatha Christie. My poison were Austen (so cliched! But apparently childhood me wasn¡¯t too heavy on originality) and Sidney Sheldon. I loved Sheldon¡¯s insane roundabout, amazing adventures with exotic and hardly-believable characters. My favourite was Tracy Whitney- the international thief who pulls off the most incredible heists, sometimes with a poodle, sometimes with a mud mask. I loved them so much that that even now when friends tell me that they have never (Never? Never?? ) read him, I shove a copy into their hands while eliciting ardent promises from them that would give it a chance. Then, my strategy backfired on me, and I ended up with a copy of ¡®One, Two, Buckle my shoe¡¯ shoved into my hands.
It is incredible how some amazing discoveries are made on a chance. As soon as I began reading this, I was transported into what seemed like a set for one of those old, black and white British dramas. There was a poignant feeling that piggybacked throughout my reading of this.
The story has an incredible structure. The beginning of every chapter is marked with the lines from the rhyme ¡®One, Two, Buckle my shoe¡¯ and in every chapter events are lined up so allusion to the lines turn up in a critical juncture of the story. The domino effect starts from the glimpse of a distinctive shoe that peeks mysteriously out from a car and the buckle is wrenched off and tumbles onto the street. How is that for an entrance!
The dentist¡¯s chair inspires fear. One of the most vulnerable positions a person can find himself/herself is with your mouth open in a lockjaw with a scary miner in a white apron sticking sharp tools and poking around your cavities while all you can do is close your eyes and pray that it is going to be over by the time you open them. Christie uses this fear to establish the character of the doctor. He appears to be a grumbling old man at first, and then is introduced as the best doctor money can buy and is then quite suddenly, with no preamble, he is found dead in his office. Obviously the police think that it is a suicide and of course Poirot sniffs foul play.
My friend tells me this is not one of Poirot¡¯s best, but I liked it! It fit in good with chocolates and my cats and a tome of blankets. It definitely doesn¡¯t qualify as edge-of-the-seat material, but it¡¯s a good companion on a cold day.