Every good fan of English cozy mysteries knows better than to have 13 guests around the dining room table. It’s just too bad no one told poor Lord Edgware.
The Story In Lord Edgware Dies
After an evening at the theater, Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings are enjoying a meal and watching the various people filter by. Moments later they are approached by the actress Jane Wilkinson, who tries to convince Poirot to intercede with her husband and encourage him to grant her a divorce. She has, Wilkinson explains, fallen in love with the Duke of Merton and plans to marry him next.
Poirot reluctantly agrees and goes to see Wilkinson’s current husband, Lord Edgware. Edgware acts surprised and informs Poirot that he agreed to the divorce months ago. The next morning, Edgware is found murdered.
Wilkinson is, of course, the primary suspect but she was miles away at a dinner party that evening and couldn’t possibly have done it. But she was seen in Edgware’s home just before he was murdered. Can a person be in two places at once? Hercule Poirot plans to find out.
My Thoughts On Lord Edgware Dies
I accidentally spoiled the ending of Lord Edgware Dies for myself so I can’t say for sure what my reaction would have been if I’d read it through without already knowing who the real killer was. I did, however, have fun trying to work out how Christie was going to pull it all together. (Finishing this one was kind of like watching an episode of Columbo–you know who the killer is and how they did it, but how’s he going to catch them?)
Of all the Poirot novels I’ve read so far for my Year With Agatha Christie reading challenge, this one is second only to The Big Four in how tedious it became to read. I struggled to care about any of the characters and some of various relationships just weren’t believable. The explanation for how the murder was committed was dubious, at best, and the ending–where the killer writes to Poirot–just seemed especially silly.
Even the presence of both Japp and Hastings wasn’t enough to make me fully enjoy this one.
Critics of the day, by contrast, disagreed with me. Perhaps the novel will grow on me???
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Lisa Barger 
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