Mystery Review: The A.B.C. Murders is the twelfth Hercule Poirot book and loyal sidekick Captain Hastings is once again along for the ride, but refuses to narrate the whole novel. This installment has more urgency than the average Poirot mystery. Usually the master detective is solving a murder in past tense, whereas here we expect the murders to keep cascading until actively stopped. The story is over the top elaborate but still credible as entertainment and close to possibility. In The A.B.C. Murders Christie carefully constructs a puzzle, finding new ways to join traditional mystery elements to divert and baffle the reader. Before I started reading Christie my assumption was that her many mysteries must've rolled off an assembly line. Not so. In each she creates something unique and different, even if not especially profound. In Christie's world the characters expertly serve the plot, unlike today's more deeply psychological crime stories in which we spend more time in someone's mind than in solving the mystery. As always, she is the virtuoso of the red herring. The A.B.C. Murders was something completely different and still dependable entertainment. [4★]
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