There are two types of Christie books. There are those like “and
then there were none”, “five little pigs”, “murder on the orient express” etc.
These had ingenious ways of murder and the investigations were wrapped up quite
neatly in the end leaving the reader almost giddy with the unalloyed joy of
discovering another great mystery. The second category of books is one in which
Halloween Party, unfortunately, falls in along with other less than
satisfactory off springs of Christie’s imagination. There are other titles like
The Big Four here for company. The denouement leaves much to be desired as many
things are conveniently(for Christie) left unexplained.
Christie had me at the very first page of the book when I read her dedication and kind words for Sir P.G. Wodehouse.I felt almost delirious because both P.G. and Agatha are among my favorite authors of all time.
However, after completing this, I felt, and I think Sir Wodehouse might have agreed that Christie could have chosen a better book for the honor.
The book starts off promisingly. There is a Halloween party.
A young girl, Joyce, tells everyone in the course of conversation that she had
once upon a time seen a murder. She adds to the intrigue by claiming that at
that point of time she could not recognize it as a murder and hence hadn’t told
anyone. By the end of the party, she is herself found drowned. Hercule Poirot
is summoned for investigation.
Poirot is in fine form right up to the last chapter. There
were many people at the party and hence he gets to interview some memorable
characters and exercise the grey cells.
In many chapters, Christie, through some of her creations,
rants about the laxity of the law while dealing with the chronologically young.
It sometimes comes across as over the top, pedantic and even condescending.
The build up to the final showdown is vintage Christie and had my pulse all pounding.
It is the end which left me like a person interrupted at the
cusp of orgasm. I felt pissed off and wanted to strangle someone myself.
After finishing this, it felt to me as if Ms. Christie had,
for once, created such a complex mystery that it became very difficult even for
her to provide a plausible motive to her killer.
This is recommended only for die hard Christie fans. This
could have been a classic but falls short when it mattered the most and ends up
leaving a sour taste in the mouth.
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