Agatha Christie's second Poirot book is the one that made Poirot become more noticeable to the general reading public. People began comparing him to Sherlock Holmes.
The plot of The Murder on the Links is not as tight as her latter books would become. It is not a favourite of mine for this reason, although I do enjoy the rivalry between Poirot and the French detective from the Paris Sûreté, Monsieur Giraud and the book is full of Poirot 'isms' - or sayings that he will later become famous for, such as his 'little grey cells' and his robust self-belief.
Typical to Christie's style, the plot was inspired by the true crime story of Marguerite Steinheil of Paris, 1899. She is said to have murdered her husband and step-mother in an elaborate plot of burglary, but in trying to throw suspicion off herself onto a member of her staff, made the detectives become suspicious of her. You can read more about this fascinating true crime story here.
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| The original British cover. |
What I do love about this book is the side story of Arthur Hastings, Poirot's sidekick and hapless wannabe detective. Hastings meets his future wife in this book, and Poirot refers to himself as 'Papa Poirot.' This becomes a regular saying whenever Poirot is feeling sentimental or nurturing towards someone in all the future books. Even though this is the second Poirot book, the story about Hastings and 'Cinders' has continuity with the last Poirot book, 'Curtain, Poirot's Last Case' when we meet Hastings' daughter and learn that he is recently become a widower.
The quote of Poirot's that I loved the most in this book is one that has stuck with me ever since I first read it as a young teenager. "Man is an unoriginal animal. Unoriginal within the law in his daily respectable life and unoriginal outside the law." I think what Agatha tries to convey in this story is that people, no matter what they do, no matter what their status in life or whether they are blessed with beauty or not remain predictable in their behaviour, their vices, their desires; ordinary and yes, unoriginal. Nothing new under the sun, you might say.
This is something I am learning about in my criminology classes also. According to my professor, her students' most remarked comment after meeting with some of this country's most heinous criminals is how surprised they are at how 'ordinary' they look and are.
I read this book on Audible, narrated by Hugh Fraser who plays Hastings in the adaptations.
You can also watch an adaptation (David Suchet) here on Youtube....
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