It seems to me that for a time now Agatha Christie did not want to write Poirot novels, and she included him because it's what the readers demanded. She had the habit during this period of writing half the novel about the victim and suspects and only introducing Poirot in the second half, to do his investigation. And even in that second part, the investigation is very focused on understanding the character of the suspects. I'm reading the Poirot books, so this should bother me, and it does a little bit, but not much because Christie is very good at this kind of things. It's not true that her characters are made of cardboard.

So, I enjoyed the characters and the general atmosphere of this book a lot. It's only about the ending that I have reservations. First, we have a main female character who has the worst taste in men. To the extent that after one tries to murder her she is still in love with her would-be murderer. Worse, it's not that she was in love and she remains in love after the attempted murder. In fact, she falls in love *because* of the attempted murderer. I do not applaud that character's taste, but fine, I accept this, because there are people who are self-destructive like that. I was more bothered by how one of the murders the author seemed to excuse more than the situation warranted, and how the motive for the other murder was a bit flimsy. Add to that the extremely clever criminal that, when the detective sees through his plot and accuses him, confesses readily, as if demoralized to have lost the battle of wits, without stopping to consider that there isn't really any proof. But fine, that's a silly trope but very usual in the Golden Age of Detection.

All these problems did not spoil my enjoyment of the book, but I'm withdrawing a star because of them. ( )

Summary: A young widow and her brother inherit a family fortune, stirring family resentments until a mysterious figure threatens blackmail and is found dead.

Gordon Cloade was the benefactor of the Cloade family. During the war, he meets a young widow, Rosaleen Underhay on a ship, and marries her. Two days after they arrive in England, all but Rosaleen and her brother David, who has joined the household, are killed in a bombing raid. Cloade had not had time to change his will to provide for both wife and family. This meant that Rosaleen, for the duration of her life inherited the income from the capital of Cloade’s life, depriving the family of needed support.

But all may not be as it seems with Rosaleen. Her first marriage had been an unhappy one. Her husband separated and then was reported dead. But a conversation where a Major Porter was overheard by Poirot, while sheltering in a club from a bombing raid, suggests that Underhay never died, but was abroad under the name of Enoch Arden, a reference to a Lord Tennyson poem about one thought dead who was not.

Christie introduces us to the various Cloades, in various states of insolvency. Jeremy, the lawyer, has been pilfering funds, and a reckoning approaches. Lionel is a physician, and has become a morphine addict, to the detriment of his finances. Rowley has been able to eke by as a farmer but had hoped for more, particularly as he anticipates marrying the village girl, Lynn Marchmont, who has returned to live with her mother after Lynn’s service as a WREN during the war.

Needless to say, many wish Rosaleen dead, or at least her claim on the Cloade fortune disproven. Then a mysterious figure shows up in town, identifying himself to David, Rosaleen’s brother, as Enoch Arden, and threatening blackmail. When Arden is found dead, Rowley, acting in the family’s interests asks Poirot to confirm the identity of the man named Arden. He calls on Porter, who testifies at the inquest that he knew Underhay and that the dead man was Underhay, despite Rosaleen’s denials. David, as prime suspect is arrested.

There’s a tangled web that Poirot has to unravel before all becomes clear. Two more die along the way. Poirot will say one is accidental, one is a suicide, and one is murder. But which is which and how are they all connected is for Poirot to discover, as he talks to people and learns things, while those around him underestimate his abilities.

I thought this a cleverly written mystery that also offered an instructive tale on the follies of depending on the wealth of a benefactor–from family or otherwise. Along the way, there is a diverting subplot as Lynn, finding Rowley somewhat dull after her war adventures, is drawn by the allure of the roguish David. I’m not sure I like Christie’s use of partner violence in this plot. As a mystery, I think this one of her better efforts, written at the height of her powers in 1948. ( )

**SPOILERS**

Making a note to myself on this one so I consider skipping it next time I embark on my periodic Poirot fest.

As always Agatha Christie presents an ingenious tale with a few well/placed hints and red herrings. The story, too, is a poignant reflection on the deprivations experienced by so many people in Britain post-WWII (and elsewhere, although Britain experienced a very particular flavour of societal fracturing). Taken at the Flood captures a snapshot in time that reflects the bigger issues Christie’s generation was grappling with at the time. The story of the Cloades, struggling to maintain their genteel lifestyles due to war-induced shortages of both goods and people, not to mention increasing taxes and other financial impositions, is a microcosm of the massive shift experienced by well-heeled aristocratic or at least upper class types who had for generations taken for granted their big, lavish properties, their servants, their unearned inheritances and their luxurious way of life. Robbed of the beneficence they had thought was coming their way, the Cloades - some of whom do work but all of whom had relied on good old Uncle Gordon to help them out of any jams - are in all sorts of bother. Almost immediately after making a rash marriage abroad to a woman some 40 years his junior, Uncle Gordy only goes and gets himself killed in a London air raid without making a new will, leaving his new wife very rich indeed and his dependent rellies frothing at the mouth at the injustice of it all. Someone - but who? - will kill to make things right.

Just as we see the family struggle to adjust to poor or no domestic help, standing in queues for depressed pots of jam and sad-looking fish, and agonising over sheafs of unpayable bills, so too do we get a peek into the unrest of the returned servicewoman/working woman, as one character wrestles with the dissatisfaction of returning from four years of adventure, challenge and independence to the dull and predictable prospect of dependent, wifely servitude. It’s an insightful glimpse into the shifting role of women at a time of massive upheaval.

Despite this interesting social commentary - a step outside the never-changing cosy drawing room of so many of her stories - Christie undoes the good work with the casual way she depicts violence towards women as an acceptable, even desirable, part of marriage. Usually I’m happy to overlook ‘problematic’ language and attitudes reflective of their day (and there’s plenty of both to be founded dotted through Christie’s novels, which spanned the 1920s-1970s) when the overall story holds up well, but this time I just couldn’t swallow the repeated suggestion of domestic violence as somehow deserved, or adding a bit of excitement to life.

Eg: One of the central female characters is described as having drifted out of her first marriage because she was bored. “If he’d been a hearty sort of fellow who drank and beat her, it would have been all right. But he was rather an intellectual man who kept a large library in the wilds and who liked to talk metaphysics. So she drifted back to Cape Town again.”

Uh, no.

The ending offers up an even more aggravating example, where a character you thought might have been more savvy forgives the bloke in her life for almost choking her to death - saved only by Papa Poirot’s fortuitous appearance. Not only does she forgive him, but she goes all weak over him again BECAUSE he just about throttled her to death. “I DO love you, and you’ve had such a hell of a time…and I’ve never, really, cared very much for being safe,” she tells him. Suffice to say it made me want to throw the book across the room.

Christie was such a clever, wonderful writer and there’s still so much genius - and many little nuggets of wit and humour - to be marvelled over in her canon. Equally, her books are like a time capsule whose little domestic details and broad-brush characterisations reflect both the best and worst of the eras during which she wrote. Hercule Poirot remains one of my all-time favourite literary creations - it’s why I revisit every one of his stories every 10-15 years or so. But I was surprised and shocked - in this post-Me Too reading - to note how casually this kind of violence was described and how uncomfortably it sat with me, fiction or not. ( )

“Sit down,” he said to David. “We will sit here and drink coffee, and you shall all three listen to Hercule Poirot while he gives you a lecture on crime.”

Christie, Agatha. Taken at the Flood: Hercule Poirot Investigates (Hercule Poirot series Book 27) (pp. 264-265). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

George Cloade promised his family his money but that promise is broken when he remarries and then dies - leaving all the money to his newly widowed wife. Hercule Poirot is drawn into the drama when it appears not all is as it seems.

This did not go where I thought it was heading. I mean sure, I always have my suspects and I usually (pretty much always) find I'm wrong but I wasn't even in the right book for this one. I kind of hoped and thought that David was innocent. The idea of him and Lynn grew on me. Whereas I hated the thought of Lynn and Rowley. But their motives were all mixed up and I thought Lionel or Kathy were the murderers. Or maybe Frances and Jeremy. Well mainly Frances - I didn't see Jeremy going down that path. I did guess Rosaleen wasn't who she said she was but I also thought David wasn't. It was just all over the place.

I liked Lynn Marchmont and Frances Cloade but the rest of the family are nuts. Frances was amusing. I loved her plan to con the con. She gets her cousin to pretend to be the first husband risen from the dead. Poirot and Rowley realise what's going on because of the strong family resemblance. And Lynn was fiery. My only complaint regarding her would be that she backflips and decides to settle with Rowley. Thrill of danger or not I would've liked her to leave the town and travel the world or something. I also liked Superintendent Spence who is a no nonsense sort and seems to be a good detective - even if he's not quite up to Poirot's class.

And Poirot was his usual great self. I love his theatrics. 4 stars. ( )

This was turning out to be one of my favorites during my read-through of the Poirot novels--until I got to the last chapter! Wow, what a horrendous denouement. The mystery itself is terrific, hence my four star rating. But it's impossible to recommend the book to anyone after that. A perfectly good novel ruined by a horribly misguided (and completely unnecessary to boot!) "romantic" development. Laughably awful. ( )