Sophie Hannah
was selected by the family of Agatha Christie to resurrect the Belgian
detective Hercule Poirot in a series of new adventures. The latest one, The
Killings at Kingfisher Hill (William Morrow, 2020), finds Poirot traveling
with Inspector Edward Catchpool to Surrey from London at the request of Richard
Devonport. Devonport’s fiancé Helen Acton has confessed to the murder of
Devonport’s brother and is soon to be executed. Devonport wants her exonerated and
the real killer found.
After an
eventful journey Poirot and Catchpool arrive at Kingfisher Hill, the home of
the Devonport family. A deeply unhappy household, the tyrannical father has
bullied and controlled them all their lives but he is helpless in the face of
the illness that is taking his wife. He’s not happy about Poirot’s presence and
the reason for it, but soon after Poirot’s arrival, Richard’s sister Daisy
confesses to killing her brother Frank and now with two admissions of guilt the
police must re-open the investigation.
The murdered
son Frank was by all accounts the best of the lot and a motive for his death is
unimaginable. In Poirot’s interviews no one is completely honest and most of
the characters are unpleasant, to Catchpool’s dismay. But Catchpool does his
best to carry out the assignments given him by Poirot, who in classic fashion
reveals all in a drawing room denouement.
The plot has
more curves, twists, and spins than a figure-skating championship. The
surprises are positively dizzying. Since Hannah is an author of psychological
thrillers, she cannot resist throwing in analysis of motives and beliefs and
emotions, unlike Christie. The Devonport family gave her a lot to work with.
This is the fourth
of the Hannah-Poirot books but the first I have read. As has already been
stated by others, Hannah’s Poirot is only superficially Christie’s. The scene
in which Poirot is licked by a dog is hilarious simply because Christie’s
Poirot would have been distraught. But Hannah’s Poirot murmurs not one word in
protest.
The worst
howler by far was the dialogue about an out-of-wedlock pregnancy and the
supposed termination that followed. Christie did not attribute inconvenient
babies to anyone but the servants and then only indirectly. Moreover, in the
1930s terminations were illegal. I can’t believe they would be discussed openly,
especially by an elderly retired policeman and a well-to-do lady on their first
meeting. Add the fact that the elderly retired policeman is a devout Catholic
and the Christie analogy collapses.
Years ago I
heard Hannah speak about her first Poirot novel. (She was puzzled by the
vitriol that had come her way in re Poirot.) She said that she discovered the
plot she’d been unsuccessfully trying to use in her contemporary books worked
quite well in a 1930s setting. Perhaps she finds the challenge of finding a
motive that fits the social mores of the 1930s an appealing aspect of
continuing the series. It seems to me she could launch a historical mystery
series with original characters of her own easily enough. No doubt she has
enough readers who are not Christie purists to make continuing with Poirot
worthwhile.
Starred review from Publishers’ Weekly.
·
Publisher: William Morrow
(September 15, 2020)
·
Language: English
·
Hardcover: 288 pages
·
ISBN-10: 0062792377
· ISBN-13: 978-0062792372
Aubrey Nye Hamilton
©2021
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
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1 comment:
Thank you, Aubrey. You mentioned some of the problems I had with Hannah's book. Her Poirot is definitely NOT Agatha Christie's Poirot. I understand why people objected after they read the first book.
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