The 1936 Club - Cards on the Table. Agatha Christie

I've read this book, oh, oodles of times, but until this reading it's never occurred to me to think what an isolated and in some ways rather pathetic figure Mr Shaitana, our murder victim is. Branded a 'dago' and 'too terrible but terribly amusing' by the smart people in London, not really well known to anyone, he lives life as a show, cultivating a fantastic and Mephistophelian appearance and a moustache that is not as luxurious as Poirot's own but 'tout de meme, it catches the eye', in the same way as Shaitana himself. He lives in London but no-one quite knows if he's Turkish or Greek or Argentine, and not being British he is rather looked down on but tolerated for his extraordinary parties. 

He throws one of his extraordinary parties for Hercule Poirot and three other sleuths (Scotland Yard's wonderfully impenetrable Superintendent Battle, the Great White Secret Service Hunter Colonel Race and celebrated authoress Ariadne Oliver, trying out a fringe and giving Christie a chance to poke fun at herself) to meet his collection of successful, unique, artistic murderers.

But this time Shaitana has miscalculated, and during a quiet evening's bridge in his charming if cluttered flat (sleuths making a four in one half of the room, murderers in the other) he is stabbed to death. 

Ariadne Oliver is, I think, the only person genuinely upset, but she bucks up at the thought of investigating a real life mystery, throwing out ideas like sparks and befriending one of the suspects and an old schoolfriend to get inside info, while Battle chats up (in his stolid respectable fashion) someone's secretary and Race digs out some long-buried rumours and Poirot, in a very subtle and polite way, asks seemingly irrelevant questions about room furnishings and grand slams that are not irrelevant at all.

What is clever in this book is seeing all those different and equally valid methods put into use and how each contributes, and that while Poirot with his little grey cells undoubtedly wins the game, none of the other sleuths are left with an empty hand. 

Again, thanks are due to Simon and Karen for hosting these six-monthly clubs with a focus on a particular year, and more book reviews from 1936 can be found here.