Hallowe'en Party (1969)

A very interesting mystery novel, that had me mostly guessing until the end, perfect for Halloween time. ( )

In my project to read all of Agatha Christie's books I've reached the late 1960. This book was published 1969, and like previous books, Christie comments on the youth of the day and the changes in the world, but unlike earlier books, it's not a main theme so it feels much less distracting.

This book I happened to know who did it from the start, either because of the TV series or because read it a long time ago without making a not about it, and I must again make the conclusion that Agatha Christie was an exceptional mystery author since knowing who the villain is doesn't harm the book at all. If anything, it makes it more fascinating, seeing how the clues are there but would so easily have been overlooked at a first read through.

The story, in case it matters, is based around a children's party in a small village where Ariadne Oliver is present and then brings in Hercule Poirot when a child is found drowned in a bowl of water. The child has earlier claimed to have witnessed a murder years before so was she silenced before she could say more?

I've read many times that Agatha Christie got tired, and fed up, with writing Hercule Poirot novels, but then, why did she do it so well? ( )

In which a young girl is killed, and Ariadne Oliver calls in an old friend.

It’s no surprise that Dame Agatha came to rely on Ariadne Oliver as Poirot’s familiar in his last novels. Aside from being a dynamic character in her own right, and a fun fictionalisation of Christie, Mrs. Oliver is an extension of the themes in the last Poirot installments: his world-weariness, and his disconnection from the world, a world which no longer relies upon the same kinds of social mores and interpersonal tricks that he excelled at recognising. But despite the power of such a change to one of crime fiction’s most fascinating detectives, Christie’s age – and, ironically, her own disconnection from the modern world – prevented her from chronicling this with her younger self’s zest.

The more recent episodes of the David Suchet series (creeping in from Series Nine, and in full throttle by Series Twelve, when "Hallowe’en Party" was adapted) have taken up this element of the character to considerable success. "Hallowe’en Party" was a decidedly successful adaptation, with Suchet and Zoë Wanamaker giving strong performances in the lead roles, and the director and designer taking full advantage of the creepiness allowed by a Halloween setting and airdate.

To the book, then: there’s no denying that "Hallowe’en Party" shows some of the structural faults from Christie’s late period. Not all the clues fold out into anything, and there are too many characters cluttering up the narrative. The return of Superintendent Spence – not included in the TV adaptation – is also under-realised. Yet, it remains one of my personal favourites. Mrs. Oliver has a stand-out appearance, and I personally was caught up in the novel’s atmosphere. Christie shows an almost sadistic delight in the brutality, too. Not that this is necessary, or even desirable much of the time. But here we are as compelled as the aged Poirot to track down someone who could commit this vile crimes, and the nature of the murder – a far cry from poison over tea and scones – ties in yet again to the world-weariness Poirot exhibits.

Poirot ranking: 9th out of 38 ( )

I jumped straight from the first Hercule Poirot mystery to this and was it ever a time warp. Agatha Christie’s dapper Belgian detective first appeared on the literary scene in 1920 in The Mysterious Affair at Styles and this entry was written in the late 1960s – almost 50 years later! It took a few chapters for me to get my bearings but once I did I found the same kind of ingeniously crafted mystery that I had in the first book. ( )

One of Christie's more daring books involves the death of a child at a Halloween Party. Joyce insisted she had once seen a murder take place, but no one believed her. No one ever did, because Joyce was known to tell lies to get attention, but then she winds up dead, drowned in the bobbing for apples bucket, and one person at the party begins to wonder. That person, Mrs. Oliver, gets her friend Poirot involved. I liked that Christie had the courage to make the children in the story not so angelic or simple as most authors do. The killer is not a huge suprise, but the journey is worth it in this one. ( )