Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Killings at Kingfisher Hill by Sophie Hannah

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.