1975 copyright; Dodd, Mead & Company publishers, New York; Book Club Edition; hardbound; very good condition with unmarked pages; dust jacket very good.
description -
Poirot's Last Case is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in September 1975 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year, selling for $7.95.
The novel features Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings in their final appearances in Christie's works. It is a country house novel, with all the characters and the murder set in one house. Not only does the novel return the characters to the setting of her first, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, but it reunites Poirot and Hastings, who last appeared together in Dumb Witness in 1937. The fictional detective dies at the end. It was adapted for television in 2013.
It is the last novel published by Christie before her death. Sleeping Murder, published posthumously, is her final novel.
plot -
A specific person is unsuspected by police or family of the victims of involvement in five previous murders, in all of which there was a clear suspect. Four of these suspects have since died (one of them hanged); in the case of Freda Clay, who gave her aunt an overdose of morphine, there was too little evidence to prosecute. Poirot calls the recently widowed Hastings to join him in solving this case. Poirot alone sees the pattern of involvement. Poirot, using a wheelchair due to arthritis, and attended by his new valet Curtiss, will not share the name of the previously unsuspected person, using X instead. X is among the guests at Styles Court with them. The old house is a guest hotel under new owners, Colonel and Mrs Luttrell. The guests know each other, with this gathering initiated when Sir William Boyd-Carrington invites the Franklins to join him for a summer holiday stay. The five prior murders took place in the area, among people known to this group.
Elizabeth Cole tells Hastings that she is a sister of Margaret Litchfield, who confessed to the murder of their father in one of the five cases. Margaret has died in Broadmoor Asylum and Elizabeth is stigmatised by the trauma. Three incidents occur in the next few days...