Peril at End House (1932) by Agatha Christie

Peril at End House (1932) is one of Agatha Christie's often overlooked novels forever standing in the shadows of her famous, widely celebrated genre classics like Murder on the Orient Express (1934), Death on the Nile (1937) and And Then There Were None (1939) – which holds true for nearly all of her so-called "second tier" mysteries. If another name had graced the covers of such titles as Lord Edgware Dies (1933), Murder is Easy (1939), Towards Zero (1944) and After the Funeral (1953), they would have been hailed as classic whodunits "Worthy of Christie."

I always viewed Peril at End House as the poster child of otherwise excellent mystery novels eclipsed by their author's more famous works. John Dickson Carr's The Problem of the Green Capsule (1939), Carter Dickson's The Reader is Warned (1939), Clayton Rawson's The Footprints on the Ceiling (1939) and Christianna Brand's Suddenly at His Residence (1946) all belong to this category. Peril at End House is admittedly not Christie's best detective novel, but I always liked it and wanted to see if can stand up to a fresh read. This time in English as I previously only read the Dutch translation, Moord onder vuurwerk (Murder During Fireworks).

Hercule Poirot is on the Cornish coast with his chronicler and long-time friend, Captain Arthur Hastings, enjoying both a holiday and a well-deserved retirement, simply content with sitting in the sun – proclaiming "I am not a stage favourite who gives the world a dozen farewells." Hastings warns him "such an emphatic pronouncement will surely tempt the gods." Just moments later, Poirot twists his ankle in the hotel garden and is helped by a woman, Nick Buckley, who owns the nearby End House. A "tumble-down old place" going "to rack and ruin" lacking a family ghost or curse, but she tells them she had "three escapes from sudden death in as many days." After saying goodbye, Poirot becomes very worried as she didn't swat away a wasp when they were talking. Poirot shows Hastings a spent bullet he picked up from the ground and the accompanying bullet hole in the hat she left behind. Someone is obviously trying to kill her!

So they go to End House to return the hat and warn Nick Buckley of the impending danger. There they find the usual, tightly-knit group of potential suspects. Mrs. Frederica "Freddie" Rice is Nick's greatest friend and confident who had a rotten life married to a beast of a man who abandoned her. Nick wishes she divorced him in order to marry their friend and Bond Street art dealer, Jim Lazarus. Commander George Challenger is another friend who wishes to marry Nick Buckley, but she sees no future in such a marriage ("...neither of us got a bean"). The gatehouse lodge is rented to an Australian couple, the Crofts, who Hastings labeled as friendly, pleasant and typical Australians. Poirot suggests they were, perhaps, playing "a part just a little too thoroughly." Charles Vyse is Nick's cousin and solicitor, but disapproves of her mode of life and hopes to reform her one day.

However, Poirot has a hard time convincing Nick her life is actually in danger. Nick finds the whole idea very amusing, "I'm not the beautiful young heiress whose death releases millions," but Poirot eventually convinces her to take it somewhat seriously and call down a friend to stay with her – she asks one of her Yorkshire cousins, Maggie. Unfortunately, the murderer mistakes Maggie for Nick, wearing her red shawl, shoots her during a firework show. So whodunit? And, more importantly, why? The motive really is the crux of the story.

The reason why Peril at End House has a poor reputation is that the murderer is not very well hidden, which is something you come to expect from the Queen of the Whodunit. This is true. I clearly remember from my first reading stumbling to the murder rather effortlessly, because even as a complete neophyte some things were so obvious they're impossible to miss and arouse suspicions. I think this was done on purpose as the real puzzle is not the identity of the murderer, but piecing together the cleverly hidden, fairly clued motive. Poirot himself remarks, "we must find the motive if we are to understand this crime." Peril at End House is a whydunit and not a bad one either. I love plot-oriented tropes like impossible crimes, unbreakable alibis and dying messages, but always dislike it when a detective story tacks on the motive as an after thought. If you want a good, solid plot, you also need pretty good motivation, not only to commit murder, but a reason to rig up a locked room scenario or an apparently air-tight alibi. So appreciated to see Christie applying her plotting skills to the why, for once, rather than the who and how.

That being said, Peril at End House could have worked as a whydunit with a stronger whodunit angle had Poirot (SPOILER/ROT13) sbbyrq rirelbar vapyhqvat Unfgvatf naq gur ernqre vagb oryvrivat gur svany nggrzcg ba Avpx jnf fhpprffshy, orsber gebggvat ure bhg ng gur fénapr sbe gur ovt erirny. N perfgsnyyra Cbvebg, orfgrq bapr ntnva ol n obk bs cbvfbarq pubpbyngrf, jbhyq unir arngyl qrsyngrq gur fhfcvpvba ntnvafg ure.

Peril at End House seems to be one of Christie's shortest novels, certainly read like her shortest novel, which might not have allowed for enough room to do justice to both. So all the attention went into the better idea. Namely the motive. I liked it. I can also see why Peril at End House comes up short for many compared to other Poirot novels as the plots feels slighter and rather obvious, in some ways, than most entries in the series – not to mention it lacks that hook to grab your attention. In that regard, Peril at End House is no Death in the Clouds (1935), The A.B.C. Murders (1936) or Cards on the Table (1936), but still a very well done, soundly plotted mystery novel in its own right. A mystery novel with a great idea at its core and brazenly clued. It's just that the name Agatha Christie demands something more than Peril at End House can deliver. A little unfair as it's still an excellent detective story and had it been written by someone like Christopher Bush (The Case of the Fatal Fireworks), it would have ranked as one of the five best Ludovic Travers novels. But that's the curse of being a so-called "second stringer" in the oeuvre of one of the best, most successful and famous authors the genre has produced in its 183 year history.

Note for the curious: the universally praised A Murder is Announced (1950) is next on the AC reread pile, because everyone keeps defending it and don't remember it being that good. But then again, I'm not a fan of Miss Marple. Even less so back then. So who knows what a fresh read might reveal. However, I might first return to the much neglected (on this blog, anyway) Dorothy L. Sayers.