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Wednesday, February 22, 2023

Cards on the Table by: Agatha Christie

 

Agatha Christie has the epithet the “Queen of Mystery,” but perhaps she should be called the “Queen of Mystery Titles.”  From classics such as The Body in the Library and And Then There Were None to her more subtle affairs like Nemesis or Sparkling Cyanide.  Cards on the Table is another of those wonderful titles with double and triple meanings and is yet one of Christie’s lower key affairs.  A man is murdered at a dinner party while his eight guests play bridge, four of the guests are detectives, four of the guests are suspects, and one of them is the murderer.  Like many Christie’s, our victim is killed early on, but Mr. Shaitana may be one of her absolute best victims, if not a problematic character.  He’s described as oriental, remember this was the mid-1930s, with absolutely no truth given as to his country of origin.  His name is linguistically related to Satan and the character is often described as a Mephistophelian figure which is at least partially playing into certain yellow fever tropes.  There are the foreign eccentricities as well as a very clear amount of coding.  Especially close readers will notice certain aspects of coding that may or may not have been intentional or just influenced by pop culture of the time that Christie would have been consuming.  Yet with all of these aspects the character is fascinating to watch in the early portions of the novel and discover quite a bit of his character through how our suspects react throughout the novel.

 

The title of Cards on the Table refers to the two games of bridge and the fact that each suspect has their own hand.  Our four detectives are characters Christie has used before: Superintendent Battle from The Secret of Chimneys, Colonel Race from The Man in the Brown Suit, Ariadne Oliver from the short story “The Case of the Discontented Soldier,” and Hercule Poirot.  While this is labeled as a Poirot novel, the other three sleuths share equal screen time and work together to solve the case, each fitting a stereotype of the time.  Poirot, of course, is the careful and anal detective you would have come to expect from the character, but his observations are nevertheless welcome and perhaps the most down to Earth since by this point he was Christie’s most popular character.  Ariadne Oliver is the standout character.  A clear pastiche of Christie herself, there’s something so assuring that Christie understands her flaws and foibles as well as the idea that as a novelist she would be a terrible detective is genuinely hilarious.  Of course Oliver ends up giving Poirot and the other sleuths runs for their money accidentally but also bares her issues in detection on her sleeves.  She still discusses motives directly with suspects which allows them to gain her trust and she’s the best part of the novel.  Battle and Race are standard policeman and spy characters in particular, Race being a spy without the James Bond charm.  The suspects are also archetypes: a doctor, a major, a widow, and an ingénue and going into who they are may give the game away as Christie’s forward to the novel is clear that the reader can figure things out.

 

Overall, Cards on the Table may be out of the norm for a Hercule Poirot mystery, but that often means Christie is on top form in playing out the game.  The characters are honestly some of her best, so much so Ariadne Oliver finds herself reappearing in several Poirot novels (and one novel on her own).  The final twist to reveal the murder and subsequent deaths that occur are also nothing to scoff at that it’s kind of a shame it hasn’t had its time in the spotlight.  10/10.

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