I have already recorded a review of this novel here.

I am re-reading it this time for discussion with my U3A Agatha Christie group.

I ma pleased to see that this time around I have actually rated the novel a tad higher - perhaps because I am now 10 years older, and have a better appreciation of aging and of the fragility of memory in particular.

I haven't necessarily repeated comments that I made in the earlier review.

Please be aware that there may be mini-spoilers in what now follows.

To solve a cold case (15 years before) where a husband and wife were assumed to have committed suicide, the sleuths decide to contact "elephants" - elderly people who may have known the couple in the past or may have heard rumours/gossip about them.

Ariadne Oliver visits many of these "elephants", including her own Nanny, and raises the tragedy in conversation to see what these people know. As she says, many of these don't actually know anything for certain, have even made up scenarios to fit what they have heard, but they have heard stories, details unconfirmed. Gradually, for the reader, a picture emerges, but really Mrs Oliver doesn't "see" it.

Ariadne is quite systematic in her investigation. She goes back through her old address books and tracks down people she hasn't seen for years. An interesting picture emerges of the life that Ariadne has led too.

Hercule Poirot mainly exercises his little grey cells. Ariadne frequently reports to him with what she has found out. He mainly pulls strings to contact ex-policemen who worked on the case at the time. He even makes a flight to Geneva when he realises there are 2 people who know more they have revealed. All becomes clear.

Some critics have cruelly suggested that Christie has Alzheimer's or similar when she wrote this. They cite a reduced vocabulary, repeated phrases etc. I think it is more that Christie is trying to emulate how elderly people talk and how they reminisce in a sort of rambling way. They become uncertain about what they once knew and have a tendency to embroider on what they can remember.

My interest in Christie is always on how she comments on social issues. At the time of writing the book she was 82, and there are lots of comments about aged care, reduced circumstances, nursing homes, and even how mental health issues are being handled.

I don't think the plot is strengthened by the wimpish characters that Celia Ravenscroft and Desmond Burton-Cox turn out to be.

However when you bother to look at it in depth, the plot is quite intricate and the various threads raise a lot of issues: the nature of community and individual memory, love, age, the effectiveness of psychiatric treatments etc. Ariadne Oliver and Hercule Poirot are themselves aging (this is their last case together, in fact, for both of them, their last cases), and I think they put a surprising amount of energy into this investigation.

I hope I haven't spoiled your reading of it! ( )

Agatha Christie's second last book, written at the age of 82 and showing some signs of the mental deterioration she appeared to suffer from in her old age. This is a tale about memory, about who remembers, and how well those memories can be trusted. Ariadne Oliver ropes Poirot in after she is asked by a stranger at a literary lunch to find out whether Oliver's god-daughter's mother shot her father or vice versa. Christie's themes of the importance of truth (which can be coped with) over a comfortable lie, of how the past can be investigated, adoption, and how love can lead to unexpected actions are strong in this book, although it is more wooly and meandering than her strongest work. One for fans. ( )

Figured out the end before it reached the climax of the story still a good read. ( )

This is only the third Agatha Christie book that I have read, but compared to the first wo (Murder of Roger Ackroyd & The Orient Express), this one was a complete let down.

I suspect that this was written late in the author's career. She passed away 3 years after this was written, and considering that she long career as a writer, its expected not everything is good.

As for the book itself, I found the characters annoying, too much pointless chit-chat, mentions of people that seemed rather important, but never brought up (for example, what happened to the young girl her pushed her brother and he fell, hitting his head and dying). And I found most of the characters to be unbelievable. Like Celia not seeming to care much that her parents died in a murder suicide plot, or that Mrs. Oliver not really knowing much about her friend's death, even is She was traveling in America at the time, the gossip would have followed her, and it would have been sensational. Even the police seemed to have dropped the case as a matter of fact sort of thing.

I also had about 75% of the plot figured out by the middle of the book. While the ending made sense, the motives seemed so off. I just can't see someone caring more there crazy Sister/Sister in-law rather than their young children, especially when the sister has a history of killing children.

This isn't a very good book. And I'd avoid it if you are just getting into Agatha Christie. ( )

Hercule Poirot se detuvo en la cima de la montaña. Años atrás, en este lugar, hubo un trágico accidente, seguido por el horrible descubrimiento de otros dos cuerpos -marido y mujer- muertos a balazos. Pero ¿quién mató a quién? ¿Se trató de un pacto suicida? ¿Un crimen pasional? ¿O un asesinato a sangre fría? Poirot deberá hurgar en el pasado para descubrir que «los viejos pecados dejan largas sombras