Ross DevenishReviews

Christie's first Poirot novel. This adaptation sticks closely to the book, leaving out a red herring or two. As usual, the visuals on the production are top notch, the audio mediocre (with no subtitles available) and the acting good.

Pretty faithful to the novel; it was the first full-novel adaptation, so permaybehaps they didn't feel they had earned the right to divagate too far from home base. A couple characters are tidied away in service of television pacing. It is an improvement, and in one case...Miss Buckley's childhood pal Freddie Rice's character...takes her from an object of pity to a tacky broad with the fate of one. There are no huge holes left by the pruning *except* the one that, having read the library's Kindle book just before rewatching the show, I noticed for the first time. It's really not huge, but it absolutely drove me as mad as the armhole of my sweater losing its serging and rubbing my armpit. No way to get fully comfy after that. Nick Buckley sits with Poirot and Hastings on their hotel's terrace; she bats away a wasp from her face, complaining of how brazen the beasts are; Poirot finds, after she's left, that her forgotten hat has a hole in the brim whereupon he finds a bullet that was shot at her.

BY WHOM?!?

Never addressed again. In the book, it's Freddie's awful husbeast who does the shooting at Miss Buckley but he's been handwaved away! Boo hiss careless writers!

Still, it took me reading then watching back-to-back to catch it, so maybe it wasn't that bad.

Yes it was. The half-star stays gone.

I have to be honest. I am only listening to this book because it is a short book and I only have 5 weeks left to meet my book goals this year. Otherwise I would have abandoned it after an hour. It isn't a bad book. This type of mystery novel - where the main character goes on and on and on about why so-and-so is or isn't guilty - just isn't my thing.