Mrs. McGinty's Dead (Hercule Poirot, #32) in Appointment With Agatha

Jan 18, 2017 BrokenTune rated it really liked it

Shelves: reviewed

鈥業 should, perhaps, madame, tell you a little more about myself. I am Hercule Poirot.鈥�
The revelation left Mrs Summerhayes unmoved.
鈥榃hat a lovely name,鈥� she said kindly. 鈥楪reek, isn鈥檛 it?鈥�

Now this is a Poirot novel that strays from the script a bit. It's fascinating but there seem to be three parts to this novel and the crime/mystery part is the weakest one. Yet, I really liked the book because first and foremost, Christie made me laugh out loud quite a few times.

Eh bien, let's start with the w 鈥業 should, perhaps, madame, tell you a little more about myself. I am Hercule Poirot.鈥�
The revelation left Mrs Summerhayes unmoved.
鈥榃hat a lovely name,鈥� she said kindly. 鈥楪reek, isn鈥檛 it?鈥�

Now this is a Poirot novel that strays from the script a bit. It's fascinating but there seem to be three parts to this novel and the crime/mystery part is the weakest one. Yet, I really liked the book because first and foremost, Christie made me laugh out loud quite a few times.

Eh bien, let's start with the weakest part - the crime/mystery:

So, Mrs. McGinty is found dead and her lodger has been arrested, is standing trial, and will probably be sentenced to hang, but ... Superintendent Spence is having doubts and is consulting an old acquaintance to have a look at the case.

鈥業 don鈥檛 know what you鈥檒l go there as,鈥� continued Spence doubtfully as he eyed Poirot. 鈥榊ou might be some kind of an opera singer. Voice broken down. Got to rest. That might do.鈥�
鈥業 shall go,鈥� said Hercule Poirot, speaking with accents of royal blood, 鈥榓s myself.鈥�
Spence received this pronouncement with pursed lips. 鈥楧鈥檡ou think that鈥檚 advisable?鈥�

From there on, the typical sleuthing adventure ensues, except that there are a lot - and I do mean way too many - characters that are part of the investigation, a few red herrings, Ariadne Oliver - whose involvement in the book has less to do with the plot (I'll get to that later) -, and an ending that seems to have been rather far-fetched.

In fact, by the time the mystery was resolved, I had kinda lost interest in the whodunit part and really enjoyed the characters interacting with each other.

This book is really not about the mystery, which, in my opinion, was rather sub-par. No rather, the book seems to have been a self-reverential celebration of all things Poirot. And this may or may not be to readers tastes. I quite liked it in this case.

We have a lot of details about Poirot himself:

In his early days, he had seen plenty of crude brutality. It had been more the rule than the exception. He found it fatiguing, and unintelligent.
---
My work has enslaved me just as their work enslaves them. When the hour of leisure arrives, they have nothing with which to fill their leisure.

We have a couple of tips of the hat to The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which was published 25(!) years before Mrs. McGintys Dead, when Poirot discussed gardening with Spence:

Me, once I decided to live in the country and grow vegetable marrows. It did not succeed. I have not the temperament.鈥�

In many of the details that describe Poirot in this book, Christie seems to take a retrospective stance, It serves as a celebration of his previous adventures, but I also could not help feeling that Christie took the opportunity to have some fun herself and poke her famous character at every opportunity. Not only, does she send Poirot to the country - and we all know how much Poirot hates the country -

It鈥檚 not really a Guest House, just a rather decrepit country house where the young couple who own it take in paying guests. I don鈥檛 think,鈥� said Spence dubiously, 鈥榯hat it鈥檚 very comfortable.鈥�
Hercule Poirot closed his eyes in agony. 鈥業f I suffer, I suffer,鈥� he said. 鈥業t has to be.鈥�

And Christie makes sure of it his suffering. This was one of my favourite parts and I am sure anyone who has ever been exasperated by Poirot's eccentricities would chuckle about the following scene of Poirot taking up lodgings at a country inn:

The room was large, and had a faded Morris wall-paper. Steel engravings of unpleasant subjects hung crookedly on the walls with one or two good oil paintings. The chair-covers were both faded and dirty, the carpet had holes in it and had never been of a pleasant design. A good deal of miscellaneous bric-脿-brac was scattered haphazard here and there. Tables rocked dangerously owing to absence of castors. One window was open, and no power on earth could, apparently, shut it again. The door, temporarily shut, was not likely to remain so. The latch did not hold, and with every gust of wind it burst open and whirling gusts of cold wind eddied round the room.

鈥業 suffer,鈥� said Hercule Poirot to himself in acute self-pity. 鈥榊es, I suffer.鈥�

The door burst open and the wind and Mrs Summerhayes came in together. She looked round the room, shouted 鈥榃hat?鈥� to someone in the distance and went out again.
Mrs Summerhayes had red hair and an attractively freckled face and was usually in a distracted state of putting things down, or else looking for them.
Hercule Poirot sprang to his feet and shut the door.
A moment or two later it opened again and Mrs Summerhayes reappeared. This time she was carrying a large enamel basin and a knife.

A man鈥檚 voice from some way away called out: 鈥楳aureen, that cat鈥檚 been sick again. What shall I do?鈥�
Mrs Summerhayes called: 鈥業鈥檓 coming, darling. Hold everything.鈥� She dropped the basin and the knife and went out again.
Poirot got up again and shut the door. He said: 鈥楧ecidedly, I suffer.鈥�

As I said I really enjoyed this part of the story but I did keep wondering why Christie took to treating Poirot in such a way. Was it to celebrate him or was she falling out with him as a character that had become so famous that he had a life of his own - just as Arthur Conan Doyle fell out with Holmes?

Which brings me to the third part - Ariadne Oliver. Ariadne is basically Christie's way of injecting a fictionalised version of herself into the Poirot stories, and in this one Ariadne enters the scene - nearly knocking Poirot over with her car - and spends a lot of time agonising over how her own fictional creation - Sven Hjerson - is being changed inappropriately by theatre and film producers.

Robin continued blithely: 鈥榃hat I feel is, here鈥檚 that wonderful young man, parachuted down鈥斺€�
Mrs Oliver interrupted: 鈥楬e鈥檚 sixty.鈥�
鈥極h no!鈥�
鈥楬e is.鈥�
鈥業 don鈥檛 see him like that. Thirty-five鈥� not a day older.鈥�
鈥楤ut I鈥檝e been writing books about him for thirty years, and he was at least thirty-five in the first one.鈥�
鈥楤ut, darling, if he鈥檚 sixty, you can鈥檛 have the tension between him and the girl鈥� what鈥檚 her name? Ingrid. I mean, it would make him just a nasty old man!鈥�
鈥業t certainly would.鈥�
鈥楽o you see, he must be thirty-five,鈥� said Robin triumphantly.
鈥楾hen he can鈥檛 be Sven Hjerson. Just make him a Norwegian young man who鈥檚 in the Resistance Movement.鈥�
鈥楤ut darling Ariadne, the whole point of the play is Sven Hjerson. You鈥檝e got an enormous public who simply adore Sven Hjerson, and who鈥檒l flock to see Sven Hjerson. He鈥檚 box office, darling!鈥�

Yeah, I can see Christie having exactly this sort of conversation with agents and producers about Poirot and Marple, and I can see Christie using this particular book as a dig at people trying to exploit her characters. And given the resolution of the plot, what a dig this is!!! If only it had deterred her estate to employ Charles Osborne to adapt her plays as novels!

So, while the mystery plot is rather mediocre, the context this novel provides for Poirot as a character that has developed a public persona outside of the books is just marvelous. ...more

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Mar 08, 2024 Wanda Pedersen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: brit-lit, read-in-2024, female-authors, mysteries-thrillers, public-library

鈥滺ow do I know?鈥� said Mrs. Oliver crossly. 鈥淗ow do I know why I ever thought of the revolting man? I must have been mad! Why a Finn when I know nothing of Finland? Why a vegetarian? Why all the idiomatic mannerisms he's got? These things just happen. You try something鈥攁nd people seem to like it鈥攁nd then you go on鈥攁nd before you know where you are, you've got someone like that maddening Sven Hjerson tied to you for life. And people even write and say how fond you must be of him. Fond of him? If I ...more

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Feb 04, 2019 Christine PNW rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2024, read-my-hoard-2024

This was only my second time reading this book - the first time I read it, I remember being extremely underwhelmed. Like other Christie's, this one improved the second time I read it. This makes me wonder if rereading Passenger to Frankfurt will somehow turn it into The ABC Murders (kidding, kidding). I attribute this to the fact that I'm less concerned with Christie's high-wire mystery act, and rather I allow myself to be absorbed into her world.

Mrs. McGinty's dead has several wonderful side ch ...more

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Mar 31, 2024 Mike Finn rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, audiobook, golden-age-mystery, crime-series

'Mrs. McGinty's Dead' was described to me as "A lesser Christie" and I think that sums it up. It's good enough to read to the end but it's not going to linger in the memory or be a book I'd want to re-read.

The plot is twisty in a way that stretches credibility. It's one of those Christie books that is all puzzle and no personality. The mystery is a sort of 'Find The Lady' card trick. There is a very limited pool of suspects who are all, like the cards, hidden face down and any one of whom could 'Mrs. McGinty's Dead' was described to me as "A lesser Christie" and I think that sums it up. It's good enough to read to the end but it's not going to linger in the memory or be a book I'd want to re-read.

The plot is twisty in a way that stretches credibility. It's one of those Christie books that is all puzzle and no personality. The mystery is a sort of 'Find The Lady' card trick. There is a very limited pool of suspects who are all, like the cards, hidden face down and any one of whom could the murderer. Like the card trick, Christie keeps switching attention around from card to card and like the card trick the whole purpose is to distract and tempt. It was fun in its way but I felt that it plodded a little and that too much time was spent discussing which card hid the Lady without turning any of them over.

I've never liked Poirot and, at the start of 'Mrs. McGinty's Dead' it seemed to me that Agatha Christie no longer liked him much either. He came across as a sad little old man who missed Hastings because he now has no one to show off to or belittle, whose main regret in life was that one can only eat three times a day, who was blind to his declining celebrity and who had no compunction about lying to everyone he meets. Unexpectedly, Christie's depiction of the dissonance between Poirot's faded fame and his self-perception made me feel sorry for him for the first time.聽

For me, the most enjoyable and memorable thing about the book was the crime novelist, Mrs. Oliver, a recurring character who seems to be an avatar for Christie herself. I loved how Chrisie used Mrs. Oliver to voice her own frustrations about screen adaptations of her novels that largely ignore the original text. My favourite part was when Mrs. Oliver was talking about the central character in her books Sven Hjerson, a Finn who loves crudit茅s, cold winter baths and solving murder mysteries and who is clearly meant to be an avatar for Poirot. She declares that she regrets ever creating him and wonders why she made him a Finn when she knew nothing about Finland and why she made him so odd. Her ambivalent relationship with him is summed up when she says, "Of course he鈥檚 idiotic, but people like him".

I listened to Hugh Fraser narrating the audiobook. He did his usual solid job but even he couldn't stop the prose from feeling mechanical at times. Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample.

...more

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Mar 22, 2015 Michelle rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, calibre, favorite-series, 2016, mystery, reviewed, classics

Poirot, my friend. Together we exercise our little gray cells and solve the case. Always a pleasure. And as usual, you get to the solution before me.

Another Christie mystery where I point the finger in my mind at all of the wrong people. I think I solve the crime over and over, only to be wrong at the end. But luckily for all of us, Poirot was there and saw what we did not.

Mrs. McGinty is dead. Her lodger is accused of the crime, but several other suspects seem to have the big three: motive, me ...more

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Jul 01, 2022 Roseli Gomes rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

S茫o v谩rios livros que li e nem sempre fa莽o um resuminho, nem coment谩ro e descobri que a Sra McGinty foi uma dessas leituras que deixei passar!
Aproveito assim e compartilho a resenha de um f茫 de Agatha, para sabermos que nunca estamos sozinhos!!

T铆tulo: A Morte da Sra. McGinty
Autor(a): Agatha Christie
Editora: L&PM Editores
N煤mero de p谩ginas: 272
Classifica莽茫o: 5/5

"O caso parecia simples: a sra. McGinty foi assassinada por seu inquilino, James Bentley, que lhe ...more

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Feb 26, 2024 Maggie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: british, fiction, mystery, agatha-christie

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. While I read through Agatha Christie's novels with the Appointments with Agatha group, I'm putting a templated synopsis of each novel in my review. It has spoilers!

Book: 41 of Christie's novels, 26 of Hercule Poirot novels
Setting: Village of Broadhinny
Detective and Companions: Hercule Poirot, Superintendent Spence
Crime: Mrs McGinty, a charwoman is killed. All evidence points to James Bentley, her lodger, being the murderer, but Poirot thinks he has been framed.
Suspects:
- James Bentley, Mrs Mcgi ...more

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Jul 08, 2023 Debbie Maskus rated it liked it · review of another edition

Agatha Christie again shines with her tale of mistaken identity that leads to murder. A convicted killer will soon hang for his crime of killing an old woman. Superintendent Spence believes that James Bentley did not commit the crime, so Spence encourages Hercule Poirot to aid in finding the actual killer. The clue to the real killer rests with decades old criminal cases and the photographs of four women. The dead woman, Mrs. McGinty, had seen a photograph during her cleaning of some lady鈥檚 hous ...more

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Mar 07, 2022 Roseli Gomes rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: agatha-christie, desafio-2022, readagatha2022

Agatha Christie se superou nesse Livro!
Nem em sombra desconfiei do culpado, as artimanhas e quantidade de suspeitos era t茫o grande, que antes de ler o final, reli o livro para ver o que deixei passar e n茫o adiantou.. n茫o achei o culpado, n茫o suspeitei quem tinha assassinado e pior, nem cheguei perto do suspeito.

Esse 茅 um dos livros que ainda n茫o tinha lido, ent茫o n茫o estava guardado em minhas mem贸rias, em resumo 茅 SURPREENDENTE , n茫o a n铆vel de Ackroid, nem de Expresso Oriente, mas 茅 um caso par ...more

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Jan 31, 2012 Laura rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2012, suspense-thriller, audio-books

From BBC Radio 4 Extra:
With a man due to hang, Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot probes a savage murder.

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Dec 10, 2010 Tim rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, agatha

Mrs mc into is a nobody who had apparently been murdered by her lodger James Bentley who was awaiting execution. hercule poiorot was brought in to investigate because Superintendent Spence cast doubt on the verdict. however another murder takes place and hercule poirot solves the case. a nice little mystery which skipped along and kept you guessing until the end, although a lower profile agatha I recommend thoroughly.

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