When a dead man turns up on the floor of a blind woman’s apartment surrounded by clocks all set to read 4:13, Special Branch Investigator Colin Lamb consults his old friend Hercule Poirot to unravel this clever puzzle.

*Summary provided by Amazon.com

I’ve been planning to read the Agatha Christie novels in order of publication, but I recently found a pile of Agatha Christie mysteries that I had purchased last year and thought I might as well read these ones first.

The Clocks was written fairly late in Agatha Christie’s writing life, and was published in 1963.

I have a love-hate relationship with Hercule Poirot.  I will openly confess that Miss Marple is my favorite detective, out of all of Christie’s characters, but at times I do enjoy Hercule Poirot – his wit, sarcasm and deduction methods are first class.

However, in The Clocks Poirot is seemingly almost retired and plays a minimal role in solving this mystery, as he tries to do it from his armchair. Poirot has assistance by the way of Colin Lamb, or as he calls him his “dog”…

“Indeed? A pretty problem in murder, you say? And you have brought it to me. Why?”
“Well-” I said slightly embarrassed. “I-I thought you might enjoy it,” I said.
Poirot looked me at me thoughtfully. He caressed his moustache with a loving hand, then he spoke.
“A master,” he said, “is often kind to his dog. He goes out and throws a ball for the dog. He goes out and throws a ball for the dog.  A dog, however, is also capable of being kind to its master. A dog kills a rabbit or a rat and brings it and lays it at his master’s feet. And what does he do then? He wags his tail.”
I laughed in spite of myself. “Am I wagging my tail?”
“I think you are, my friend. Yes I think you are.”
“All right then,” I said. “And what does master say? Does he want to see the doggy’s rat? Does he want to know all about it?”

That passage struck my funny bone at the time, and still does now.  Poirot is able to be funny and belittling at the same time. Perhaps that is why the love-hate relationship I have with him continues.

I quite liked The Clocks.  It’s not a straight forward mystery, and like many of Christie’s mysteries there are a few things going on that don’t tie together until the last chapter.  As always it kept me glued to the last pages. Even my housework got neglected with this one!

There is one point in The Clocks where Poirot analyses other fiction detective writers and fans of mystery novels will find this bit amusing. This goes on for several pages, so I will just highlight one that I found amusing…

“The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” he murmured, lovingly, and even uttered reverently the one word, “Maitre!”
“Sherlock Holmes?” I asked.
“Ah, non, non, not Sherlock Holmes! It is the author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, that I salute. These tales of Sherlock Holmes are in reality far-fetched, full of fallacies and most artificially contrived. But the art of the writing – ah, that is entirely different. The pleasure of the language, the creation above all of that magnificent character, Dr Watson. Ah, that indeed was a triumph.”

Reading these pages I wondered if these were Christie’s own beliefs or merely for her amusement. One may never know.

All in all another great Agatha Christie mystery, one with just a tad of romance in it, that left me feeling warm, fuzzy and content. The perfect novel for me to read before starting The Shining.

Tags: agatha christie, book review, mystery, the clocks

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