Lord Edgware Dies opens with Poirot and Hastings watching Carlotta Adams’s matinee, where she shows her skill at impersonation while mocking some of the biggest names in London. One of these is Jane Wilkinson, the current Lady Edgware. Wilkinson is one of Christie’s greatest monsters, a woman who’s completely self-absorbed. She doesn't care one bit about others unless it impacts her. "I don’t mean she’s exactly immoral--she isn't…Just sees one thing only in life--what Jane wants." Poirot gets a first-hand view of this when she tell him, "M. Poirot, somehow or other I’ve just got to get rid of my husband!"
Thankfully, she tells Poirot that she just wants him to help her get a divorce from her husband. Intrigued, and interested to study Lord Edgware, Poirot agrees…only to learn that Lord Edgware already agreed to a divorce! Six months ago! Poirot speculates that one of the two is lying, or a third party has suppressed the letter where he agreed. But this mystery is complicated by a more serious one: Lord Edgware is stabbed to death in his library, and the servants report that he was visited by Lady Edgware. An open-and-shut case, were it not for a crucial detail: Jane Wikinson was at a dinner at the time of death…
And before you get any clever ideas about Carlotts Adams, she too is dead. An overdose of veronal did her in. It’s quickly determined that she visited Lord Edgware on the night he died, but who hired her to frame Jane Wilkinson? Bryan Adams is the first to talk about Jane’s amorality whenever possible. There’s also the dead man’s daughter, a victim of Edgware’s cruelty. And what about Lord Edgware’s dissolute nephew, Ronald Marsh, who benefits handsomely from his uncle’s death? There’s even a shady butler who goes missing after the murder to complicate things.
Edgware is a novel set among high-society; Poirot hob-nobs with lords and ladies and actors and intellectuals. And yet, the key clues are things like a pair of eyeglasses, a torn letter. The mystery is very well-constructed. Some Christie novels suffer from too many unrelated criminal schemes at the last second, here she does a better job about folding in the plots of the different suspects to the main murder. Said main murder is quite well done. I’d been spoiled on it, and read some criticism of the solution going in. However, I think Christie does an excellent job, as she always does, at misdirecting the reader and getting them to ask the wrong questions and follow their own assumptions, rather than the evidence. Sure, you could argue that it’s unlikely that Poirot would struggle, but the average reader will. And even if you do know the solution, there’s always the joy that comes from seeing how carefully Christie clues her mystery.
Poirot and Hastings also have some good banter here. I will never understand why Hastings is always so keen to ship Poirot off to the old folks’ home every other time he speaks, but when he’s snarking with Poirot, he’s at his best. I do have a couple of issues with the book: there’s one bit that gets hyped up as a minor mystery that’s handwaved at the end (ROT13: gur zrqvpny xabjyrqtr arrqrq gb xvyy gur ivpgvz) and, on a more serious note, whenever Christie starts talking about Jews I wince. My issues, even the anti-Semitism, were ultimately minor issues in a pretty solid book, however.
Lord Edgware Dies is a little underrated. You don’t see people naming it as their favorite Christie, at least. I think this is because it was written when Christie was putting out classic after classic; the Poirot before this was Peril at End House, and the following book was…Murder on the Orient Express. So this can easily fall under the radar. The idea that the solution is weak I also think contributes to this. That’s a shame, because this is a solid Christie novel. It's not my personal best either, frankly, but it is very much worth your time. Recommended.
Other Reviews: Ah, Sweet Mystery, Dead Yesterday, Tangled Yarns, The Grandest Game in the World, In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel, Classic Mysteries, Countdown John's Christie Journal (contains spoilers later in the post), Beneath the Stains of Time, Mysteries Ahoy!
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