Review: Five Little Pigs (Hercule Poirot #25) by Agatha Christie

SiriusB Reviews Category / B+ Reviews / Book Reviews / Recommended ReadsBritish Mystery1 Comments

It was an open and shut case. All the evidence said Caroline Crale poisoned her philandering husband, a brilliant painter. She was quickly and easily convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Now, sixteen years later, in a posthumous letter, Mrs. Crale has assured her grown daughter that she was innocent. But instead of setting the young woman’s mind at ease, the letter only raises disquieting questions. Did Caroline indeed write the truth? And if she didn’t kill her husband, who did?

To find out, the Crale’s daughter asks Hercule Poirot to reopen the case. His investigation takes him deep into the conflicting memories and motivations of the five other people who were with the Crales on the fatal day. With his keen understanding of human psychology, he manages to discover the surprising truth behind the artist’s death.

Review:

Dear Readers,

DA Commenter oceanjasper recommended this book on my review of “Cards on the Table” by this writer. I put it on library hold almost right away, but after waiting for few weeks it went on sale on Amazon and I one clicked.

I thought it was a really fun and clever read and yes, the more stories by Agatha Christie I read the more I see how she tried to challenge herself and write “not formulaic” mysteries, too. This book is clearly one of those. First of all as the blurb tells you, the murder happened sixteen years ago and the daughter of the accused and convicted “murderer” comes to Poirot asking to prove her mother’s innocence because of a letter from her mother she just recently read when she turned twenty one, because she wants to get married and she wants to prove to her fiancé and herself that she does not have the propensity for murder (which to me was kind of nonsensical, but I get why in the mind of the fictional character it mattered).

After a little hesitation Poirot decides to try and see what he can find out about the events that took place at that time and he finds out and visits five people who were the live witnesses of the day when Caroline Crale allegedly killed her husband.

After conducting the interview Poirot asks all five of them to write their accounts of what happened and of course lo and behold after reading their accounts he realizes and reveals who the real murderer was.  You know, I went to read some Goodreads reviews and some complained that it was boring to read the description of the same events done by five different people. I would agree in theory, because I have read some books where the writer would feel a need to recite the same events from the POV of just two people and my only question was why, why did you feel the need to do that, author?

Here I thought it was *fascinating* – because the underlying feelings were so different, how all of them would describe what occurred. I was not bored at all and yes, the underlying psychological reasoning mostly made perfect sense to me.

No, I did not guess the murderer (in Christie’s stories I never have so far), but the biggest problem for me was of course why would the actual murderer agreed to writing this statement? I mean, I know Poirot he is writing a book, but still they all knew who he was and in that world he is quite famous. So I had to convince myself to go along with that, but otherwise I really enjoyed the story.

Grade: B+

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