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Silent Pool - which book?

Paul_Slade 23 Oct 09 at 1:18 p.m. GMT

I believe Christie used Silent Pool in Surrey to kill one of her characters. Can anyone tell which book this figures in, and who she disposed of there? Was it a drowning?

Many thanks

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GKCfan 24 Oct 09 at 4:53 a.m. GMT

I don't remember this in any book, but an Internet search led to several pages that mention that when Christie disappeared for eleven days in the 1920's, her car was found near the Silent Pool.

Paul_Slade 24 Oct 09 at 9:56 a.m. GMT

That's what put me on to Silent Pool in the first place. In an old edition of his newspaper column The Straight Dope, Cecil Adams (normally a reliable source) says: "A quarter mile from where her car was found, there was a lake called Silent Pool that Agatha had used in one of her books; one of her characters had drowned there".

When Christie vanished, she'd published six books: The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Secret Adversary, The Murder on the Links, The Man in the Brown Suit, The Secret of Chimneys and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. For all I know, she may have had some short stories out too. Adams' wording suggests Silent Pool must have already appeared in one of her works by the time she disappeared.

I'm trying to (a) confirm that Silent Pool does appear in a Christie book (or short story), (b) find out which one and (c) get the plot details involved. Anyone?

Puffinjill 25 Oct 09 at 1:37 p.m. GMT

AC set the short story The Idol House of Astarte at a place called Silent Grove (published 1932). I don't know if that is the location you are looking for. I can't think of her referring to Silent Pool at all.

There is a Patricia Wentworth book called The Silent Pool. Could you of heard of this?

NightRayDuck 18 Feb 11 at 7:02 a.m. GMT

Hi Paul_Slade, there are many stories that I had read 2 decades ago in another language, of which I have nearly no reliable memory. But I can eliminate or help clarify some of the stories have been mentioned, I've read them within the last year, in the English language, American edition.

There is no drowning, and no pool, in The Idol House of Astarte. The death in that story is caused by some sort of stab wound, within a clearing surrounded by too many trees.

There is no death by drowning in The Secret of Chimneys. There is rather a large lake on the estate, on which the characters like to row boats so to be far away from prying ears. I don't think that lake has a name.

Another idea - A Caribbean Mystery, in which there is a drowning in a, I think it's a pond or a small lake. I don't recall a name for that pond, but I may be wrong.

Hope that helps~