⛱ Poirot is having a holiday at a beach side hotel in Devon. Among his fellow guests, is Arlena Marshall, the kind of beautiful flirtatious woman, to whom men usually drawn to, just like moth to light. She stays at the hotel with her husband, Captain Marshal, and her step daughter, Linda Marshall.
⛱ It's no secret to everyone (including Captain Marshall) that Patrick Redfern is Arlena's current "victim". Though he is staying with his wife Christine, he is clearly infatuated with Arlena. Another guest, a Reverend, tells Poirot that he can strongly feels that evil is in the air - evil under the sun.
⛱ It's no surprise to anyone, really, when one day Arlena is found dead, strangled. She was having a secret rendezvous at Pixy Cove that morning, and never returns. There's no doubt that she was murdered by one of her fellow hotel guests - a man (due to the strangulation), but the question is, which one?
⛱ Along the investigation run by Inspector Colgate and Poirot, it is soon revealed that the case isn't quite straightforward as they've been expecting. Both the husband and the lover (the immediate suspects) had a cast iron alibi. Moreover, there are also other possibilities of motive: drug smuggling is one of them.
⛱ Once again, Hercule Poirot triumphantly solved the mystery, thanks to his attention to tiny little - seemingly - irrelevant details; such as a bottle tossed out of a window, or water running while no one was having a bath. I loved his method of collecting these inexplicable things as pieces of puzzle, and when one of them is answered, he sees then in his head how the pieces of the puzzle placed snugly one by one to its correct place, revealing to him the complete image of what had been happening.
⛱ Evil Under the Sun is just another of Christie's satisfying whodunnit crime novel. It has the summer holiday vibe, red herrings, and mathematically precision of the murder, great deduction from Poirot, and unexpected solution. All of the reasons why we keep reading the Golden Age crime fiction!
Rating: 4,5 / 5
This book counts for British Crime Classics Challenge 2023
For Bingo Card: Set on an Island
For Monthly Theme: Favorite Detective: Hercule Poirot
Thank you for participating in BCCC, Fanda :)
ReplyDeleteI love this book. I have read it twice as well as watched the TV adaptation of it twice. :)
Thanks for hosting it, Rekha! ;)
DeleteThis was my 2nd read to, but never watched the adaptation (yet).
This is one of my favourites from the Poirot books and I know the first time I read it, I didn't see the answer coming at all. I would recommend the Peter Ustinov adaptation--though Ustinov does not (in my mind) make a good Poirot and they made some changes in the plot, the last scene was so excellently done that I loved it.
ReplyDeleteSame here. One of the most brilliant plot twists from Christie.
DeleteThanks for the recs, I'll take a note on that!
I like the summer vibe of this one. And, of course, I love Poirot. :D
ReplyDeleteWe all love Poirot on holiday! :))
DeleteLoved it too!
ReplyDeleteThe little ombrella at the beginning of each paragraph is so so very cute!
Thanks, Emma! I love to use emojis as 'bullets', trying to elevate the book's vibes ;)
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