Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie

 

Title:  Three Act Tragedy

Author:  Agatha Christie

Narrated by:  Hugh Fraser

Publisher: HarperAudio

Length: Approximately 6 hours

Source: Checked out with Libby through the Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!

Do you have a favorite play?  I enjoy plays and really like mysteries.  I don’t really have one favorite play, although seeing A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare with my best friend Jenn at American Player’s Theatre twenty plus years ago was one of my favorites.

I am participating in the #ReadChristie2025 Challenge.  The challenge this year is exploring Agatha Christie’s works through her characters and their careers.  The theme for March is performers and I read Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie for the first time.  One of the main characters is a famous actor, Sir Charles Cartwright.  He has other folks that are associated with the theatre over to his home.

Sir Charles Cartwright holds a dinner party at his home.  One of his guests is Hercule Poirot.  When the local vicar, Babbington, suddenly dies, Sir Charles is sure that he was poisoned.  Later, many of the same guests are together for a party when yet another guest dies after drinking port.  He was discovered to have been poisoned by nicotine.  Who is poisoning people in their drinks and why?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       This novel was published in 1935.

·       I enjoyed the way this book was set up.  The First Act or part of the book was suspicion, the second act was certainty, and the third act was discovery. 

·       This mystery has a love story in with as Hermoine Lytton Gore (nickname Egg) loves Sir Charles who is thirty years her senior.  She tries to make him jealous by flirting with a younger man, and Sir Charles leaves the country much to her dismay. Sir Charles and Egg help Poirot with his investigation.

·       Hercule Poirot can’t help himself again.  He is retired and as a young child observes, you can only look at the sea so much.  He gives a history of losing the woman he love, coming out of retirement to work, growing rich and famous, and then retiring again.

·       At the end of the novel, Poirot discusses that he often uses a thick accent even though he speaks perfect English so that people will overlook him and be at ease.  I enjoyed these types of snippets that rounded out the character of Poirot.

·       I was totally caught off guard by the killer in this one.

·       Once again, Hugh Fraser was a wonderful narrator for this novel.

Overall, Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie was a solid and entertaining mystery.  I like how Christie tried out new formats and different ways to write her mysteries through time.