Books

Elephants Can Remember (Hercule Poirot Mysteries)

Average customer rating:

Ariadne Oliver's last case
Another Excellent Poirot Mystery
Egregiously Bad, Monumentally Boring, and No Mystery
Poirot ponders the clues
Excellent

Elephants Can Remember (Hercule Poirot Mysteries)
Agatha Christie
Manufacturer: Berkley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

War | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

British Detectives | Mystery | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books

General | Mystery | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books

Series | Mystery | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books

General | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Mystery & Thriller Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

General | Mystery & Thrillers | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books

All 4-for-3 Deals | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Third Girl (Hercule Poirot)
Hallowe'en Party (Hercule Poirot Mysteries)
Hickory Dickory Dock (Poirot)
Cat Among the Pigeons (Hercule Poirot Mysteries)
Mrs. McGinty's Dead: A Hercule Poirot Novel (Hercule Poirot Mysteries)

ASIN: 0425067823
Release Date: 2004-01-06

Book Description

With the help of Detective Poirot, mystery writer Ariadne Oliver must solve a murder from her past--before the tragic piece of history repeats itself.

Whodunit? The question is posed of mystery writer Ariadne Oliver. This time it isn't asked by her readers, but rather detective Hercule Poirot. And the unsolved crime is from Oliver's own dark past.

"Christie...cozier than ever...in a lethal way, of course." (Library Journal)

Download Description

"E-book exclusive extras: 1) Christie biographer Charles Osborne's essay on Elephants Can Remember; 2) ""The Poirots"": the complete guide to all the cases of the great Belgian detective.

""The Ravenscrofts didn't seem that kind of person. They seemed well balanced and placid."" And yet, twelve years earlier, the husband had shot the wife, and then himself - or perhaps it was the other way around, since sets of both of their fingerprints were on the gun, and the gun had fallen between them. The case haunts Ariadne Oliver, who had been a friend of the couple. The famous mystery novelist desires this real-life mystery solved, and calls upon Hercule Poirot to help her do so. Poirot is now a very old man, but his mind is as nimble and as sharp as ever and can still penetrate deep into the shadows. But as Poirot and Mrs Oliver and Superintendent Spence reopen the long-closed case, a startling discovery awaits them. And if memory serves Poirot (and it does!), crime - like history - has a tendency to repeat itself.

Customer Reviews:

Ariadne Oliver's last case.......2006-07-21

Detective novelist (and Christie alter ego) Ariadne Oliver has been coaxed into attending a literary party, something she, like Christie, did not enjoy and avoided whenever possible. Mrs. Oliver's experience at this one would ensure that it would be a long time before she attended another. An overbearing woman, Mrs. Burton-Cox manages to corner the author cross examine her about her goddaughter, one of many Mrs. Oliver has managed to acquire through the years. And now that the young woman, Celia, is quite grown up, one with which Mrs. Oliver has quite lost touch. It seems that Celia and Mrs. Burton-Cox's son are engaged, or will soon be, and Mrs. Burton-Cox wants to know if Celia's mother killed her father or did her father kill her mother. Mrs. Oliver was quite shocked by the rudeness of the encounter and troubled about what to do about it so she contacted her friend, Hercule Poirot, for guidance in the matter. Soon the pair, each in their own unique way, begin to tackle the problems, re-establishing contact with Celia, investigating the old tragedy and finding out just why Mrs. Burton-Cox is so insistance on knowing the answer.

For fans of Ariadne Oliver this is a particular treat, giving the reader more information into her (and perhaps Christie's) personal life, than any previous stories. It is interesting to see Oliver's and Poirot's different approaches to investigation, even to the point of different interpretations of what the actual problem is.

This is not the cleverest mystery that Christie ever wrote, nor even the best written but it is a very enjoyable one none the less and is a definite must read for any Poirot or Oliver fan.

Another Excellent Poirot Mystery.......2006-05-31

When Adriane Oliver, noted crime author, is asked if she knows great whether her God-daughter's mother killed her father or vice versa, she enlists the help of the great Belgian slueth, Hercule Poirot to uncover the truth of a strange double suicide (or was it murder) from the past.

Through a series of interviews, often revealing conflicting views on the same events, Ms. Oliver and Poirot reconstruct the sequence of events leading up to the deaths in question. Personally, I enjoyed this book. Christies narrative is top notch and the solution to the mystery is neatly tied up and intuitive. I tought Christie did an excellent job of taking the reader from point A to point B and all the way to the end. Little clues were dropped along the way, as well as a few blind turns. As always, Christie's characters are interesting and well-written. My only complaint, and its a minor one, is that the solution was a bit predictable. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Egregiously Bad, Monumentally Boring, and No Mystery.......2005-10-24

This must be the worst Agatha Christie book ever. It's her very last Hercule Poirot novel, and one can see that the writer is very old by now (82). There is no freshness left in her prose; it is stale, predictable, corny, and generally trashy. As other reviewers have said, the material contained here would barely be enough to sustain a short story. To make a full-length novel out of this really is ridiculous. The book fails at what normally is Agatha Christie's greatest strength: the plot and the denouement. With dozens of pages left to go, the reader *knows* the solution! Unheard of in the world of Christie; if for nothing else, then for this the novel cannot be rated higher than 1 star. However, the characters and dialogs are boring and cliche-ridden as well, so the book has no redeeming qualities either. Nothing ever happens on the 200 pages of this book; no crime, no mystery, no real conflict among characters; it's all just endlessly boring talk, talk, and nothing but talk about the past. The only interesting thing, perhaps, is to contemplate the autobiographical hints Christie gives us in describing one of the novel's detectives, Ariadne Oliver -- a mystery writer. But these hints are only interesting because they throw light on our favourite writer, Agatha Christie -- they are not interesting in themselves and therefore do not improve the book's literary quality. It was excruciating to have to wade through the turgid prose of this book; this title cannot be recommended to anyone except extreme Christie enthusiasts.

Poirot ponders the clues.......2004-11-30

Hercule Poirot's friend Mrs. Oliver has so many godchildren that she has lost track of them, and she has not thought of her god daughter Celia Ravenscroft for many years. She receives a visit from Mrs. Burton-Cox, a woman whose son wishes to marry Celia. She has a strange request--that Mrs. Oliver find out whether Celia's mother killed her father or vice versa. She does not reveal her reasons for wanting this information, but her request sends Mrs. Oliver right to Poirot who does much of the sleuthing for her. The two friends take separate paths in order to interview as many people as possible who can remember things from the Ravenscrofts' past. Mrs. Oliver dubs the witnesses as "elephants", people who will not forget important details which may help them solve the case. The mystery in this particular novel is not as difficult for the reader to unravel as it is in most of Christie's books, and that spoiled the fun for me a bit. Uncharacteristically the author reveals too many clues too early in the book, but it still is worth reading.

Excellent.......2004-10-16

Christie books never disappoint. I haven't read one of her books in years, but I am reminded again why she is the gold standard against which all others are measured. In solving this puzzling mystery, Poirot must carefully pick through the often foggy memories of the "elephants" to get to the truth of the matter. Of course, he does, in his own fashion. I enjoyed reading this and would recommend it to anyone.

Elephants Can Remember-Agatha Christie Mystery Collection

Average customer rating:

Elephants Can Remember-Agatha Christie Mystery Collection
Agatha Christie
Manufacturer: NY: Bantam, 1984
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HFLK2K

Average customer rating:

Elephants Can Remember
Agatha Christie
Manufacturer: Dell Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Look Inside Mystery & Thriller Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: B000BP52P2

Product Description

This is Mrs. Oliver's final appearance in a Christie novel and also the last Poirot book Agatha Christie wrote, although readers will see him again in "Curtain" which she wrote during the 1940's but was not published until 1975.

Elephants Can Remember (Cover Illustration By Tom Adams)

Average customer rating:

Elephants Can Remember (Cover Illustration By Tom Adams)

Manufacturer: Fontana / Collins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0006139302

Average customer rating:

Elephants Can Remember
Agatha Christie
Manufacturer: Dodd, Mead & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000FV8Y52

Average customer rating:

Elephants Can Remember

ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0006132618

Product Description

Another fine Agatha Christie book

Average customer rating:

Elephants Can Remember
Agatha Christie
Manufacturer: Berkley Publishing Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000MZ1H78

Average customer rating:

Elephants can Remember
Agatha Christie
Manufacturer: Berkley Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000GSF1AK

Average customer rating:

Elephants Can Remember

Manufacturer: Macmillan General Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0330281658

Average customer rating:

Elephants Can Remember

Manufacturer: Dodd, Mead & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000I2CJ2M

Books:

Books