Death in the clouds

 

Series: Hercule Poirot #12

Author: Agatha Christie

Genre: Mystery

Original Publication date: March 10, 1935

Book description:

A woman is killed by a poisoned dart in the enclosed confines of a commercial passenger plane…

From seat No.9, Hercule Poirot was ideally placed to observe his fellow air passengers. Over to his right sat a pretty young woman, clearly infatuated with the man opposite; ahead, in seat No.13, sat a Countess with a poorly-concealed cocaine habit; across the gangway in seat No.8, a detective writer was being troubled by an aggressive wasp.

What Poirot did not yet realize was that behind him, in seat No.2, sat the slumped, lifeless body of a woman.

Thoughts:

Another story about H. Poirot. This one comes by chance. The retired detective happens to be in the same flight as a death by a very peculiar method. The method itself is intriguing, the choice for it uncertain for most of the time.

It is another classic who-did-it-story like it is the custom of Christie. The crime took place on a commercial plane. The criminal had to be one of the passengers. The woman was a very wealthy moneylender, so the possibility of enemies is a very real one. 

The retired detective once more is the main point of view we follow. In the initial trial for the case of the murder, thanks to a very impolite dislike from one of the Jury members the culprit is selected as Hercule Poirot. The judge overrules the verdict and the investigation continues. Apparently a member of the jury, a prod English man distrusts all foreigners, and based on that belief he manages to convince his companions (the rest of the Jury) that the only possible murder could be the man named Poirot because of reasons unspecified. 

Of course, Poirot cannot let this go, he works on the investigation along with a few volunteers. He catches the eye of two of the passengers, a nice young woman who by chance won a ticket to a very popular gambling den (personal belief not mixed here, I do not harbor a strong dislike for gambling ;D). she is a sweet innocent young woman looking for a purpose in life. During the stay in the gambling place, she met by chance a nice young man, a dentist. They start to hang out and Poitot runs into them and the three of them decide to investigate the case. As they investigate they follow several leads and possible suspects. Poirot proves to be capable of blackmail (at least in pretense), bribe, and being untruthful as long as he manages to prove or advance in his research.

He has a gray morality that might apply only to himself. As I have seen before, Poirot does not have romantic partners but he pays a lot of attention to young unmarried women. Why would that be? Also, Hastings does not show in the story anymore, I wonder if he will resurface in the next ones. 

I enjoyed this one, it was an ok experience. Again I do not think we get enough information to discover the culprit. Poirot continues to get inspiration and make discoveries but the revelations come at the very end. Still, he is not as annoying as before. I find I like him a lot now. 

Highly recommend it for anyone interested in classic mystery books. I find that Agatha Christie is one of those writers that even if her stories are almost a hundred years old they are still very easy to read.