The Big Four
by Agatha Christie
Genres: Crime, MysteryPages: 272
Series: Poirot #5
Rating:
Synopsis:Framed in the doorway of Poirot's bedroom stood an uninvited guest, coated from head to foot in dust. The man's gaunt face stared for a moment, then he swayed and fell.
Who was he? Was he suffering from shock or just exhaustion? Above all, what was the significance of the figure 4, scribbled over and over again on a sheet of paper? Poirot finds himself plunged into a world of international intrigue, risking his life to uncover the truth about 'Number Four'.
I know that The Big Four is considered one of Agatha Christie’s weaker books (including by Christie herself), but I actually kind of enjoyed it? In part, it probably helped that I read it via Serial Reader, which matched well with the episodic feeling in the book. It also helps that it’s quite short, and each episode is partly self-contained, meaning there’s not so much time to get overcomplicated and build up a huge catch of the proverbial fishies.
It’s of course melodramatic and over the top, with a bit of the flavour of Sherlock Holmes vs Moriarty, but I just kinda leaned into that and let it go. Hastings wasn’t as unbearable as usual (though I still don’t like him)… though I found Poirot pretty insufferable, especially with his repeated decision to let Hastings suffer in ignorance because he can’t act.
I’m still not a Christie fan (and this book contained her usual casual racism, etc), but this one worked surprisingly well for me.
Rating: 3/5
I read my first Agatha Christie a year or so ago. Even the books considered to be weaker are astonishingly good. I marvel at how someone can plot a mystery out.
I’m not actually a huge Christie fan in general (I prefer Sayers and Lorac), but there’s no denying that Christie had something special.
This was definitely one of my least favorites of the Christie books I’ve read so far… but yeah, part of that was I’m not a huge fan of Hastings being dumb. LOL
I mean… isn’t that just Hastings, in general? He always seems to me very much in the “hapless sidekick” realm of detective story tropes (allowing the reader to feel clever and accentuating the apparent intelligence of the detective, etc etc).