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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!

Taken at the Flood

Moderator1 09 Nov 09 at 9:58 a.m. GMT

When Gordon Cloade is killed by a bomb blast during the London Blitz his young widow, the former Mrs Underhay, is suddenly very rich.  Naturally members of the Cloade family are unhappy that they will not inherit and when Poirot is visited by the dead man's sister-in-law he wonders why she is so convinced that Mr Underhay is still alive.  When a stranger is found strangled in the Stag Inn Poirot must join all the dots and discover just who is who...

Perhaps not one of Christie's best known books is it perhaps one of her most convincing mysteries?  Is this another case of a manipulative man preying on a weak woman to get what he wants? 

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liz3280 05 Oct 11 at 9:45 a.m. GMT

xrysoula

liz3280

Yeah cause the last time someone tried to kill me I fell right in love with them.

We are currently living happy ever after (in between the visits to the prison where he is on remand for showing me how ready he was to reach the edge).

I 'm sorry you find it so hard to even consider a point of view diffirent than your own.

I 've said before and maybe I should say it again:I tried to offer an explanation to what otherwise seems to be a compeletely irrational decision of Lyhn 's.Why, in Heaven's name, is that SO incomprihensible?

By the way, I haven't seen anyone offering us a different aspect.Have I missed something?Or should the whole world unanimously agree that the book 's ending is weird and disappointing, so we can all be done with it once and for all?

As for the rest, I agree with Puffinjill.

NightRayDuck 20 Apr 11 at 5:43 a.m. GMT

Now that Nofret is back in the puzzle games, I start to feel that the "whole family ganged up against the new spouse" might have been Death Comes as the End?

Still, I remember details from a story, not sure if it's this story, but I'll have to use the character names from this story to describe the parallel characters in the story I am thinking of and can't find.

Someone like "Gordon Cloade" made huge money by being a war profiteer / ammunition manufacturer, and a substantial amount of the start-up capital came from money that "Jeremy Cloade" the lawyer embezzled from his clients, including "Lord Edward Trenton".

"Rosaleen" (the real one) married "Gordon Cloade" and moved her brother "David Hunter" into the household, as well, because their family had been done out of business when "Gordon Cloade" managed to corner the market and gain a monopoly. (Maybe I got this bit from A Pocket Full of Rye, instead.)

NightRayDuck 18 Nov 10 at 6:29 a.m. GMT

I've been thinking about it, I can't remember anything else. The first time I read Taken at the Flood was a translated edition (English being not my first language) printed in an era when translators and editors-in-chief liked to write long introductions comparing various tales, so it is possible that a) mis-translation of adjectives and verbs describing the characters created an impression of much more malicious intention, or b) it got too difficult for me to keep track of which tales the editors-in-chief were discussing in the introductions. I mean, names like "Elizabeth" and "Elisabetta" and "Eleze" all get rendered very similarly in the translation, and when they're done translating and comparing, it's tough for a kid to keep track of which one from the introduction is the one that appears in the particular book that the kid is going to read. 

MissQuin 13 Oct 10 at 4:12 p.m. GMT

 a story in which many members of a family have actively and purposefully participated in the murders of several strangers / new-comers who stand in their way to a large inheritance. Does that scenario happen in any other Christie story? 

It really doesn't ring any bells with me, although it might be so. Can you remember anything else?

NightRayDuck 13 Oct 10 at 5:48 a.m. GMT

OK, I finished the novel, and now I have a very odd feeling it's not at all the book I had read several decades ago. I feel distinctly that there's a story in which many members of a family have actively and purposefully participated in the murders of several strangers / new-comers who stand in their way to a large inheritance. Does that scenario happen in any other Christie story? 

NightRayDuck 12 Oct 10 at 4:44 a.m. GMT

I agree with the comment "Bad Rowly"! I read this novel a long time ago, couldn't remember anything for certain, started re-reading it a few days ago, but I feel quite certain that as soon as I read a scene I realize the true state of affairs in that scene... for the most part. For when Rowley looks at Frances Cloade's family photos and suddenly decides not to consult Frances's husband, Rowley's Uncle Jeremy... and so on. What I am trying to say is, I am not afraid of spoilers....

Right now, I am at the point where the police has just been called in on the death of the inn guest who registered himself as Enoch Arden. I think I remember he is in fact Frances's infamous cousin.... Either way, I am rather annoyed with the way that the Warmsley Vale residents all take it for granted that the Cloades are good and wonderful. The inn manager and the police superintendent act almost as though the Cloades are a landed and titled old family. But there's not been any mention of a family home, or a granddad whose small fortune had been divided between the siblings and that Gordon made the best profit out of it. What is Gordon's business, is there no need for business executives to oversee the concern? What did Lynn's father do when he was alive? How did Rowley's parents die? Jeremy is an embezzler now; might he not have started a few decades ago on Lord Edward Trenton? Jeremy's son Antony went into the Guards, so who was the other Cloade on Jeremy's law firm "Cloade, Brunskill, and Cloade"? It looks, for now, like a mish-mash of characters thrown together to produce tension and mystery. I hope some of these questions get answered at the end and turn out to have some importance in the mystery. 

MissQuin 07 Sep 10 at 5:31 p.m. GMT

Didn't Rowly plant Rosaline's lighter next to the body?

Bad Rowly! It's amusing as David Hunter was bad, but didn't pretend to be otherwise. I was thinking Lynn should get away from him and choose "nice Rowly". Then Rowly turned out ot be aggressive and scheming too.

I don't see why Lynn shouldn't have come back. She might have wanted to see her mother and other realtives. She wasn't going to know how she felt about Rowly til she saw him. So I think it's unfair to blame lynn for that. But she chose Rowly in the end, whcih is contraicatry to everything gone before.

Tommy_A_Jones 05 Sep 10 at 4:11 p.m. GMT

So she can't really complain then, apart from Rowley Throttleing her of course

xrysoula 05 Sep 10 at 3:56 p.m. GMT

That is a possibility too, although I remember Lyhn mentioning at some point that when she was away, she felt homesick and wanted to return.

Tommy_A_Jones 04 Sep 10 at 4:39 p.m. GMT

Rowley had the Farm before Lynne Joined The Wrens so she knew what she was coming back to, she should have wrote to him while she was in the Wrens telling Rowley she wasn't coming back.

MissQuin 04 Sep 10 at 4:26 p.m. GMT

Yes, nearly being strangled is very exciting!  I'm not sure how exciting for Lynn it would be down at the farm though.  Day to day chores like cow milking, not really be on her list of big thrills. Being chased by an errate bull could be, I suppose that was something to look forward to. Or washing before the days of washing machines, ironing Rowly's clothes and his pants. Wow! Gripping stuff.

xrysoula 04 Sep 10 at 3:57 p.m. GMT

On the other hand, Lyhn had known Rowly all her life, they were related after all, so it wouldn 't make sense to expect him to turn into a romantic poet or something.Besides, I don 't think that it was romance that Lyhn was looking for, but excitement. Poirot makes a very good point when he tells her that she wasn 't pleased with her engagement when she left, and she continued not to be on her return. According to my opinion, if Lyhn  returned home before Gordon 's death and all that she got caught up in, she would probably just break off the engagement and move on with her life

MissQuin 03 Sep 10 at 5:14 p.m. GMT

I can't say I entirely blame him for hitting Enoch Arden. But attacking lynn was out of order! I mean, he should have learnt his lesson from what happened to Arden.

I don't thnik it was Lynn's fault at all. I can't blame her being attracted to a man whose sexy and exciting. If Rowly had been more romantic, she wouldn't have strayed! Then Rowly bribed the Colonel, which led to his suicide. Not Rowly's fault entirely, but it was comepltey underhand and pre planned.

Tommy_A_Jones 03 Sep 10 at 4:56 p.m. GMT

Didn't he hit Enoch who then slipped and hit his Head? I know you should never hit someone but people hit people every day who don't slip and hit their Head so I don't think Rowly can be blamed for that, and Lynne did provoke him, she should have left Rowly as soon as she realised she had feelings for David.

MissQuin 03 Sep 10 at 4:46 p.m. GMT

Taken At The flood spoilers!! Sorry to disagree once more Tommy! But Rowly hit the man going by the name Enoch Arden. He accidently killed him. Then instead of learning to curb his temper, he goes on to nearly kill Lynn!!

Tommy_A_Jones 03 Sep 10 at 4:23 p.m. GMT

Thankyou Miss Quin, I agree with you I don't think Lynn Needed to marry Rowly in fact I think it would have made a better ending if she had come to collect her belongings, given Rowly a Peck on the Cheek asnd gone of to find a Hotel Room until she knew where she was going to live long-term but I disagree about Rowly, I don't think he was a Violent men Normally I think his Violence surprised him and if the story had gone on he would have learnt from his outburst which would have never resurfaced and losing Lynn would have been a constant reminder to him.

MissQuin 02 Sep 10 at 6:28 p.m. GMT

Taken At The Flood spoilers!!! Token marriage: Well there have been some charming romantic pairings in Chrisite's works. But some of the marriages seem completley out of the blue and fanciful. For istance the end of Towards Zero. It's almost like some marriages and engagements are added as an afterthought. There's a few books that don't contain marriages. Puffinjill has wisely pointed out that it had become expected of the books to have a marriage at the end.

I don't believe Lynn had to marry Rowly, but feel that AC was only pairing them because otherwise they'd be no "happy fairytale ending". It's seems very unfitting that a independant young woman like Lynn, had decided to marry a farmer with an uncontrolable temper. What sort of freedom and independence would she have with that sort of husband? It's likely to be Rowly's view that women should defer to their husbands. He was clearly violent and Lynn life expectancy would have plummeted after their marriage!

I would have liked it if Lynn married no-one in the end.

Tommy_A_Jones 02 Sep 10 at 4:50 p.m. GMT

Miss Quin, I know it is a while ago but can you tell me what you mean by 'Token Marriage' Lynn didn't need to marry Rowly, the book would have worked with out having that ending, I don't think Agatha Christie did put herself in a Corner.

MissQuin 02 Sep 10 at 4:37 p.m. GMT

The real Rosaleen's an Irish Protestant. The fake Rosaleen was Catholic, which is how Poriot found she was a fake.

Wasn't it that Underhay had died aborad and the colonel knew so?

Tommy_A_Jones 02 Sep 10 at 4:02 p.m. GMT

I finished the book yesterday, I liked it, I would have liked to know what happened to the real Underhay. Good job Enoch died or the 2 who hired him would be Jailed. I thought Rowley and Lynn were the most interesting Characters in the book, The Book convinced me that the real Rosaleen was the one who was Catholic, That is Clever or I am stupid, I am not sure which it is.