A difficult book to rate. It's Agatha Christie so instantly it's a solid 4 or 5 star. I enjoyed the process and the unveiling of each character, so still a solid 4 or 5 star. I worked out the solution but in a way that I was still satisfied and just felt supremely intelligent, still a solid 4 or 5 star.

But. The three romantic relationships at the end made me crinnggeee so boop there goes one star. ( )

I can cross Christie off my list of classic authors to try. I’ve read 3 books of hers and only 1 was good. Although it’s got the worst name so I’m not even proud of that.

No thank you. Moving on. ( )

The nature versus nurture debate is at the heart of this standalone psychological mystery. Jacko Argyle died in prison after he was convicted of murdering his mother by hitting her over the head with a poker. A couple of years after the trial, a new witness appears with exculpatory evidence that proves Jacko was not in the house when his mother was murdered. But if Jacko was innocent, then someone else must be guilty. The rest of the family and the household employees will live under a cloud of suspicion until the real murderer is discovered. The witness, Dr. Calgary, feels responsible for stirring up the cloud of suspicion, and he believes he has a moral obligation to solve the crime and free the innocent from suspicion.

This novel is very similar to many of Poirot’s cases, and I think it would have worked better as a Poirot mystery. It suffers from lack of an easily identifiable protagonist/detective. Sometimes Arthur Calgary works on the puzzle. Sometimes the local police superintendent works on it. Sometimes Philip Durant, the murder victim’s disabled son-in-law, fancies he can solve the mystery. Christie excelled at revealing character through conversation, and her dialogue carries her best novels. This novel focuses more on what various characters are thinking to themselves, and there isn’t a lot of dialogue. I think that’s why the pace seems to drag. ( )

Tedious to get through, all the yakking, the two-bit psychologizing, blah blah. BUT: the ending took me by surprise. I've read it before, but still didn't know whodunnit! How can Agatha be so good at that, over and over? ( )

Good read, well constructed. Some good old anachronistic sexism & racism. Was mostly reading to compare with the BBC series. This was much more cleverly constructed — I didn't guess the murderer, but had to take my hat off to Ms Christie for having laid all the clues there (though there were a couple of incidents which really stretch credulity). All that said, I think as written it would have been a slightly dull tv show. Soooo... let's call that one a draw. ( )