Peril at the House
Crime, Mystery
Agatha Christie
Hercule Poirot, Book # 8
HarperCollins
February 1932
Paperback
287
English
September 28, 2019 September 29, 2019
Hercule Poirot is vacationing on the Cornish coast when he meets Nick Buckly. Nick is the young and reckless mistress of End House, an imposing structure perched on the rocky cliffs of St. Loo.
Poirot has taken a particular interest in the young woman who has recently narrowly escaped a series of life-threatening accidents. Something tells the Belgian sleuth that these so-called accidents are more than just mere coincidences or a spate of bad luck. It seems all too clear to him that someone is trying to do away with poor Nick, but who? And, what is the motive? In his quest for answers, Poirot must delve into the dark history of End House. The deeper he gets into his investigation, the more certain he is that the killer will soon strike again. And, this time, Nick may not escape with her life.
About the book
Second Agatha Christie’s book that I read and first about Hercule Poirot. This is not the first book in the series because I have only 4 Christie’s books in the house and I don’t want to spend money on these series. Even if it’s the #8 in the series, it wasn’t difficult to understand the book. The only flaw is that I don’t know the characters very well.
First of all the narrator is Captain Hastings and not Poirot as I believed before reading this book. The book is set in an island in the south of England in the middle of the Channel (or this is what I found searching for the city on Google Maps) and here Poirot retired form his detective work.
He meets a woman, Nicky, who has been victim of 3 attacks on her life, but she doesn’t know that someone wants to kill her.
Sometimes reading a classic thriller is what I need and even if I have a love/hate relationship with the main character, I liked the book. Yes, because sometimes I adore Poirot with his “I’m so good” behaviour but sometimes I hate this behaviour. In spite of this, the book is well structured even if it isn’t a complicated book to read (just like the other Christie’s book). To say the truth I read it in less than two days and after the “small” book that Fire and Blood was, it’s what I needed.
The only flaw of the book in my Italian version is the French (I don’t know if it’s a problem in the original version). I know that Poirot is Belgian, I know that it’s part of his character speaking a little bit of French and that’s what makes him unique, but a small note with the translation, no? I hate French, I’ve never studied it and will never study it and “reading” it in a translated book makes me really mad. And the same it’s for English when it happens that it isn’t translated in a translated book. Because I do understand it but what about people that don’t know it? They don’t understand part of the book because of it.
Even if I’m not a Christie lover, I recommend this book for those who like a light read, but that want to read something about the mystery genre.
