Review: Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie

SiriusB+ Reviews / Book ReviewsClassic Murder Mystery / locked room mysteryNo Comments

A flamboyant party host is murdered in full view of a roomful of bridge players!

Mr. Shaitana was famous, as were his parties. He was also a man of whom everybody was a little afraid. So, when he boasted to Poirot that he considered murder an art form, the detective had some reservations about accepting a party invitation of cards and viewing Shaitana’s private art collection. Indeed, what began as an absorbing evening of bridge was to turn into a more dangerous game altogether…

I GOT THE BOOK FROM THE LIBRARY

Review:

Dear readers,

Not so long ago I realized that I actually have not read that many of Agatha Christie’s works and decided to go back and try some more since at some point in my reading life I stopped reading them at all. I decided that I will occasionally try some of her books if I see a good recommendation and this one came up in a book blogger’s video which I liked.

I really liked it, I thought the investigation was very interesting, although I could have done without the author’s foreword where she took time to explain that the investigation here had a more psychological angle than a surprising one. Eh. Okay thanks Mrs. Christie, surely I could have judged that for myself. This foreword notwithstanding, I loved it.

Poirot is actually my favorite investigator in her books and I was happy when I saw his name in the summary, but it will show you that I don’t have a good knowledge of her characters when I tell you that this story actually features *four* of the investigators that apparently made appearances in her other books and out of those four I was only very familiar with Poirot, and “met” one other – Superintendent Battle – in the book I have read and reviewed here recently. Two other investigators I have not previously “met” at all.

So, I just have to give a little bit more detail about the set up than what the blurb to the story gave. Mr. Shaitana, who ended up being a murder victim, invited four other people and four investigators to his bridge game. The suspicion is that one of those four other people did it (because no one else could) and the investigators end up doing a collaborative investigation I guess. Since the suspicion is firmly on these four people (no, I am not saying why they were invited to the game in the first place because this is quite spoilerish for investigation purposes), I suppose this can be considered a locked room mystery.

Although the story plays out a little differently than locked room mysteries often are because the suspects are allowed to leave after initial interviews and our investigators continue working since they realize that they need to investigate the suspects’ past and that’s impossible to do in a short period of time.

I was very entertained by the twists and turns of this one and despite there just being four suspects, the writer still fooled me. I thought everything was leading to one person being a killer of Mr Shaintana and I was wrong.

Grade: B+

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