Choo Kong Kong itibaren Thimarasanayakanoor, Tamil Nadu 625536, India
I've watched many of Poirot's mysteries on TV, with David Suchet as Hercules Poirot, without ever having read any of Agatha Christie's novels. What a delight this book is! Hastings actually has a character! He's so funny, with his healthy ego, and I feel a kinship to him in his imaginative theories of who the murderer is and why, without any logical connection to the facts of the case. He spends most of the book having a crush on Mary Cavendish, which is also sweet. And Poirot! So different from David Suchet's portrayal! Christie's Hercules is by turns cheery, "shrugging off his worries". Then excitable and intensely emotional when discovering important clue. My favorite part was when he found confirmation for one of his theories: 'Ah, my friend,' said Poirot, 'I am like a giant refreshed. I run! I leap!' And, in very truth, run and leap he did, gambolling wildly down the stretch of lawn... You'd never catch David Suchet's Hercules running and leaping. =) As for the mystery itself, Christie lead me on a merry-go-round of my own theories of who the murderer was, suspecting each character at one point or another, before finally coming full circle and revealing the true murderer.