Book Club

Poirot Stories

Poirot is Agatha Christie's most famous and popular detective.  No doubt he would agree that he deserves that accolade!

Here is the place to discuss all of his stories in detail with other fans.  The most insightful comments will be added to the Stories pages.  But remember to beware spoilers!

If you can't find your favourite Poirot story here, don't worry - we'll be adding them all soon.

Warning: These discussions may contain spoilers!

Five Little Pigs

Jemma 25 Sep 09 at 3:40 p.m. GMT

This is indeed a complex case for Poirot. He has been asked to investigate a murder - nothing unusual there of course, but the murder took place sixteen years before. What will Poirot be able to draw from the memories of the people involved at the time? It would seem the opening of old wounds is inevitable, but Poirot must tread carefully to extract the truth from remembered fiction.  

Do these multiple retellings of the story hold the interest of the reader? Could Christie have made the story move faster by setting the murder in the present? Is there really a need to tie this story in to a nursery rhyme as it doesn't really run much deeper than the title? What do you think?

Login or register to add posts and reply

21 replies

Reverse order

Puffinjill 07 Oct 09 at 6:58 p.m. GMT

I'm not so sure about the nursery rhyme motif, but it did give AC a way of linking and referring to the main protagonists. Plus, again, it's very well known to all as we all probably recognise it from childhood so immediately if brings up positive emotions in us that might draw us to the book.

As for the method of setting the murder in the past, I think it works wonderfully well. I can't imagine the book having the same impact it was set at the time of investigation. It's so very interesting seeing how time and experience has altered everyones view of what the saw or heard, even if they do not realise the changes that have happened to them.

Again, Poirot, to me, is at is absolute best in a book of this kind. It's an academic problem, removed from the emotion of the moment, and his precise, fastidious nature shows itself to the fore.

It's text book Christie and recommended to anyone, Simple, pared down to basics, fantastic use of logic and language - just very, very effective.

Read more about this story: Five Little Pigs

MissQuin 07 Jan 10 at 2:51 p.m. GMT

I do love Five Little Pigs. It's so different to the other Poirot books with the exception of The Hollow. I also wasnt sure about the added nursery rhyme, but it doesnt detract in any way. All of the characters are so complex, theyre not just murder suspects. Despite the story being set in the past, it still seemed a good pace. The re-tellings didnt drag in anyway for me, as each time the story was given a new angle.

The end was so unexpected and quite chilling.

I did enjoy the TV version despite some changes. I will forgiven the producers though, as Toby Stephens was so excellent!

originality_querido 14 Jan 10 at 1:20 p.m. GMT

CAN SOMEONE TELL ME HOW THE HELL DID POIROT KNOW THAT ANGELA WARREN HAD READ THAT BOOK OF THE MOON & SIXPENCE BY THAT TIME?! REALLY I CAN'T FIGURE IT OUT :P

GKCfan 14 Jan 10 at 7:24 p.m. GMT

I think we answered this question on the old website years ago, but I can't remember the answer.  The Moon and Sixpence is about an artist who winds up hurting a lot of people close to him with his selfish obsessions.  Presumably Angela drew upon the book and unconsciously incorporated its themes, images, and perhaps some quotes into her memories.

Attica76 22 Jan 10 at 9:18 a.m. GMT

I didn't like this book originally. I thought that this endless repetition of the same story with slight variations was boring. 

However, I watched the TV version yesterday and it has somewhat reconciled me with the book. And I liked the contrast between the photography of the flashbacks (in yellow, summery tones) and the cold, blue present. What I didn't like though was the overly shaky camera when they showed separate characters' points of view. 

MissQuin, I also liked the way they cast the Blake brothers, much more interesting than in the book. And young Carla Lemarchant was so beautiful! I wished though she'd fired that shot at the end and wounded the murderer, not fatally but unpleasantly - in the knee, for example (it disappointed me in the book that Carla didn't do anything at all after finding out about who the murderer was).  

MissQuin 22 Jan 10 at 3:35 p.m. GMT

Hello Attica, the end of Five Little Pigs really startled me in the book and TV.

After I read it, I felt bewildered. I thought the murderer had "gotten away with it". But when I re-read the last chapter, I could see it differently.

The murderer is really complex one, who I don't think felt any guilt or remorse.  Justice isnt dealt out in the normal Christie way, the murderer doesnt get sent to prison or die. Yet their life was ruined forever. The murderer say's "I didn't know I was killing myself- not him" then say's "I died.." then repeats "I died.."

I find this one of the most poignant lines in AC books. It shows that before they killed, the murderer was full of life and now they have no pleasure in living. That's why I think the Suchet version, has them goading Carla to kill them. They'd prefer to end their life. The murderer is so miserable, that if they had been killed, it would be an release from the mental prison theyve made for themselves.

I can understand why you'd want them to be wounded. Carla walking away did exactly what the opposite of what the murderer wanted. Carla would never stoop down to their level. Does that make sense at all?

What a brilliant book...

Attica76 22 Jan 10 at 5:29 p.m. GMT

MissQuin, I understand it was meant to be this way but I still can't swallow it somehow.

First, if she didn't enjoy living, then why and how did she get married - not once, but 3 times, if I'm not mistaken - and every husband was famous and rich? If she were "dead" mentally she shouldn't really care about her station in life and fortune but she did. 

Second, I think it was someone from the Gucci family who said, "It's better to cry in a Mercedes than to laugh on a bike". If she went to jail I bet she would feel more miserable, without a staff of servants to cater to her every whim and a lot of money at her disposal.

So all in all, the ending is ingenious but seems overly sentimental. Well, most criminals in AC's books get their just deserts so there may be one where they don't.

MissQuin 23 Jan 10 at 2:13 p.m. GMT

What does everyone else think? Was the murderer uneffected or were there reprecussions?

I believe them to be a pretty miserable characater. They are still a schemer, but theyve lost their spirit and they try and it replace it by having lots of money. Being rich gives them power and protection. The way they had a servant wraps a rug around their legs, to stop them getting cold, just showed them as helpless and pathetic. They say they don't care if go on trial, which shows the characters state of mind. This is a complete contrast to the killer in Lord Edgeware dies.

Theres another book where someone does get away with murder.. one of AC best.

Lone_Wolf 15 Feb 10 at 4:17 p.m. GMT

"First, if she didn't enjoy living, then why and how did she get married - not once, but 3 times, if I'm not mistaken - and every husband was famous and rich? If she were "dead" mentally she shouldn't really care about her station in life and fortune but she did."

She was emotionally dead, not mentally. I presume she wanted to run away from her feeling of emptiness by surrounding herself with luxuries, to drown it in luxuries, so to speak. Makes sense to me. Rich characters who act in exactly that way are an actually pretty common theme in literature.

As for the book itself, a definite, underappreciated, classic, with much character derpth. 

The "retelling of the same thing many times" was pretty interesting to me because of the perspective changes. I liked how every character had a different approach to the case. However, I see why it may be boring at times, and that's why the book loses half a point. 9,5/10.

Interesting to note the themes of solving a long ago commited murder and a seemingly stereotypical love triangle which is subverted in the end. Both are quite common in AC books, and "Five Little Pigs" is one of the best books with such themes.

MissQuin 15 Feb 10 at 4:28 p.m. GMT

What I was trying to say, is her mind worked the way it always had. I didn't say she was mentally dead, but her spirit was. But emotionally she was different. If you compare her character in the flashbacks, to the one in the present day they are very different.

So she was cunning, so she married rich men, Who it seems may have been alot older, plus for all we know very old and unattractive! So she didn't have any love or even passion. She surrounded herself with luxuries instead. But she was clearly quite a disturbed person. It will sound corny to some people, but her money hasn't brought happiness. She wouldn't have said she had "died" otherwise.

darkelinor 20 Jul 10 at 8:52 p.m. GMT

SPOILER!

Hope it's okay to post this here. I just finished re-reading FLP (my all-time favorite), and may have caught an error. In the final scene, Poirot says to Angela, "You told me--did you not?--that to play a malicious joke on Amyas Crale you pinched some of what you called 'the cat stuff'--that is how you put it." I can't seem to find the passage earlier in the book where Angela says this . . . did Christie make a mistake or am I accidentally skipping over the passage? Thanks in advance!

GKCfan 21 Jul 10 at 7:59 p.m. GMT

I believe this scene does appear in either his interview with Angela or her account of the case.

ninjapenguin 06 Aug 10 at 3:50 p.m. GMT

I think it may be an error in some editions.  I know I was just re-reading it the other day and went back and searched everything she said and couldn't find it in the paperback edition I had.  But I think I did read it in another copy.

Masha_Gayne 06 Mar 11 at 9:52 p.m. GMT

I have just finished reading the signature paper-back edition of Five Little Pigs and you are quite, nowhere does it appear that Angela mentions to Poirot that she pinched that cat stuff, only does he tell Meridth Blake that the reason his mind went to cat after Meridth discovered someone had been in his laboratory was because he could smell the valerian hanging in the air.

I am sure it is just an over-sight in the printing because I am nearly one hundred percent sure the matter is talked about in a much older hard-back edition my grandmother used to own.

Skizo 31 Mar 11 at 12:34 a.m. GMT

Simply a brilliant book. I really enjoyed this book because AC gave us an almost equal Chance with Poirot to find out the killer ( And I guessed right! )

Mr_Battle_Brent 22 May 11 at 7:23 p.m. GMT

I wouldn't like to be Angela:Caroline died with thought Angela murdered Amyas. To me,this feeling when someone close to you thinks that you are guilty of something you haven't done is worse then knowing you are hatred,for example.

Roger_Ackroyd1926 31 May 11 at 4:39 a.m. GMT

I first read this in 1975 as MURDER IN RETROSPECT (its US title) in the paperback reprint from Dell Books. I'm re-reading it as FIVE LITTLE PIGS in the nice new oversized paperback edition published in the US by Harper Paperbacks.  One of the great delights of these new editions is that they revert to the original U.K. texts - I haven't had a look recently at the paperback editions Berkley Books did in the US from the 1980s until recently, but I have the Dell edition here before me, and it definitely re-formatted the chapters (probably according to the Dodd, Mead hardcover edition of 1943).

Just last week I finished reading Winifred Holtby's 1936 novel SOUTH RIDING, and am struck by the coincidence that both that novel and FIVE LITTLE PIGS make use of the expression "'Take what you want, and pay for it,' says God."

Quin90 15 Jul 11 at 6:48 a.m. GMT

I LOVED this book!!That's all I can say....I just LOVE this book!!?

Agatha Christie you're trully the Queen of crime!!?

Mr_west 14 Aug 11 at 6:09 p.m. GMT

I read this one after a very good experience with Cards On The Table. Christie's more psychological books are my favorite and they are even better when the range of suspect is very limited (more characters developments and depth).

Well, this was one of the most unusual books. there was no "Action" in the book, only interviews and accounts anf finally a conclusion.

I didn't guessed the solution, and yet it wasn't a surprise. not like Cards On The Table in which the ending came to me as a complete surprsie (due to the events which occured in the last few chapters of course).

The characters,though, were more "fresh" and interesting than those in Cards (mainly Carolie for me, who was described always as a different character). I think AC succed to write one of her better tricks: she used the complicated relationships between the characters to hide the real solution (which is the love triangle, a very common theme in her stories) and yet this "common" solution was for me a very chilling and psychologhicaly interesting thing than all the other live triangles AC had created (actually, I find most of them pretty shallow mostly because the crime is usually commited for something earthly like money).

On the whole, this is a very fine book, one of her greatest perheps, but yet I have the feeling that there is "something" that is missing

8.5-9/10 

Milly 02 Sep 11 at 7:26 a.m. GMT

I have just read my first Agatha Christie novel, Five Little Pigs.  I really enjoyed it, but I did not get why did the second beer taste foul when Angela didn't get to put the catnip in?  Does anyone have any ideas?