It is Autumn, this week there have been storm clouds in the sky and wind pulling leaves off branches. I am preparing for Halloween and hopefully a horde of trick or treaters who will be knocking on doors in the near future. In my preparation, I was also listening to Christie’s ‘Hallowe’en Party.’ It is a book I have not read by an author I consider an old friend – even if I never met her. Agatha Christie and her beloved Belgian Hercule Poirot are special to me. I watched the series with Hugh Fraser as Hastings and David Suchet as Poirot with my family as a child. Recently, I watched several with my father and they withstood the test of time. It was with joy I found out the narration was done by Hugh Fraser heightening a sense of nostalgia for me and I burrowed down into blankets and dogs to enjoy this mystery.Hercule Poirot is older now, at the end of his career, but he still seeks justice with a well-groomed mustache and patent leather shoes. At the request of his friend the famous murder mystery writer, Ariadne Oliver, he has come to help solve the death of a young girl. Ariadne was invited to her friend’s house for a Halloween Party. Amidst the broom decoration, witches telling young girls fortunes, bobbing for apples, and the snapdragon a girl is found drowned. Not in a mundane fashion either, she was found with her head floating in the tub used for bobbing for apples. No one can think why someone would want her dead. She wasn’t delightful, in fact she was known to seek attention by lying, but she wasn’t what one would consider special. Ariadne heard the young girl boasting of having seen a murder to her friends, but when no one believed her she flounced off in a huff. It wasn’t until the party was over anyone noticed her disappearance. Ariadne, noticing something more sinister, insists Poirot come and use his skills to find out what is really happening in this quiet village.Christie’s writing is as enjoyable as ever. Her humor in these delicate murder mysteries is part of what I think made her stories unique and loved. She never skimped on creating real whole characters. ‘Hallowe’en Party’ is not long but it is packed with a good mystery, and commentary on the times it was written. This was published in 1969 and while it still holds the atmosphere of a quiet English village you can feel Christie seeing the changes in England as she writes about it, including the changing opinions on children, accountability, and justice. Much is said about how making “morally right” decisions can have larger, and in Christie’s view more negative, impacts on children and society.The Halloween party is perfect. You get a lot of discussion about village witches, the difference between pumpkins and vegetable marrows, young girls seeing their future husbands in mirrors, and a Snapdragon. I had no idea what a Snapdragon is. For your information ‘Snapdragon’ is a Victorian parlour game where raisins are put in a shallow bowl filled with brandy. The Brandy is lit and children try to grab the “snapping” raisins from the bowl. It sounds a touch dangerous to me but it definitely fits as a fun Halloween game (even if it usually took place at Christmas time).Small town politics and gossip, as is tradition, help Christie’s characters find their murderer. I loved this book. It will definitely be something I reread/relisten to around Halloween. It is the perfect length at 336 pages or about six hours listening time. It will get you ready for a Halloween party of your own…*This is on sale for $1.99 on Amazon starting 10-19-15*
This is a reread especially for Halloween which is coming at the end of this month.I didn't like it as much this time around as I did the first time -- I must somehow and despite myself be gaining a semblance of reading maturity. Having recently watched the excellent dramatization of this book on DVD (with David Suchet, of course, as Poirot and Zoe Wanamaker the absolutely perfect Ariadne Oliver), I figured I'd give Christie's Hallowe'en Party another go in book form. After finishing it late yesterday afternoon, I found myself agreeing with a contemporary reviewer from the Toronto Daily Star who wrote that "Poirot seems weary and so does the book." It was a bit disappointing in that I'm used to actually seeing Poirot's little gray cells at work, and here, while he does solve the mystery, it's just not the same as the older Poirot novels -- he does indeed seem incredibly tired. Poirot's less than lackluster self combined with several missed character opportunities and plot holes made this book not as fun to read as I'd hoped.The plot itself is an incredibly good one. The wealthy Mrs. Rowena Drake, who has her fingers in every social, civic and church-related pie in her village, throws a Halloween party at her home for the "eleven-plus" group of kids. Ariadne Oliver happens to be in the neighborhood, staying with her friend Mrs. Butler, and they both attend the party. Mrs. Oliver is famous, of course, and one young girl (Joyce) tries to impress by telling her about the time she saw a murder happen. Of course, she says, she didn't realize that it was a murder that she was seeing at the time, but now she realizes the truth of it. Joyce, who has a penchant for story telling and making things up, is pooh-poohed by everyone at the party -- no one believes her and they make fun of her for making up something so outrageous. But someone must have believed her, because when the party ends, Joyce is discovered head down in a tub filled with water meant for apple bobbing. Poirot is visited the next day by a very shaken Ariadne Oliver, who tells him what happened. He latches on to Joyce's tale of murder, leading him to go to the scene of the crime.While the plot is good, I think Christie missed the boat on this one -- it most certainly isn't the best of Poirot and it isn't the best in terms of clues for the amateur armchair detective to follow. I just don't feel like she utilized those skills in this book that made her such an enduring mystery writer. When it comes down to the who and the why, things seemed rather shaky and I found myself saying things like "but what about..?" more than once. I hate plot holes, no matter who the writer is, and there are definitely a couple or three sinkhole-sized ones here a person could drive a Mack truck through.So the long and short of it is great plot potential, but not so hot in the execution. I suppose even Agatha Christie can have an off day, and it definitely shows in this one.
What do You think about Hallowe'en Party (2001)?
So much for my silly Halloween books resolution; this book was terrible.The premise is that a girl named Joyce gets killed at a Halloween party hosted by the control freak Mrs. Drake. She is drowned in a bucket used for bobbing for apples in the library of Mrs. Drake's home. The authoress Ariadne Oliver is at the party and she senses there is more to this death than a random act of violence. She brings in Poirot to investigate.The first 1/2 of the book was nothing but Poirot going around and interviewing people in the town. Every single one of them said the exact same thing. And I mean the exact same thing. They all said things like Joyce is a liar, a know-it-all, not very nice, etc. Which makes me not care at all that Joyce died. Anyway, it all centered around the idea that just before her murder, Joyce said she witnessed a murder. Poirot and Mrs. Oliver suspect that this comment was what got her killed. But since Joyce is such a big liar, why would anyone believe her? Anyway, all the questioning was boring because everyone was saying the same thing, and I didn't feel like we got any additional clues from anyone. The first 100 pages could have been condensed into 5. Oh, and those 5 pages would have included at least a whole page about how the world is not what it used to be, how there are so many mentally unstable people walking around killing people, and how promiscuous the girls tend to be these days. In a nutshell, boring.
—Amber
Well there you have it! If you're going to blab the jab then take the stab or in this case apple bobbing drowning. I enjoyed myself! Once again my AC doesn't fail me! The majority of the book is a series of interviews very little happens off that besides the ending and a few sore feet and majestic garden quarry side drawings, but I found myself forming an ending and having it be shot down by a clue. I was surprised by a pairing I'll say that much is for sure! Overall a good quick read for the perfect time of year
—Samantha Pedroza
My first Agatha Christie novel - quite enjoyed it and the glorious way she tosses into the apple-bobbing barrel allusions to Shakespeare, the Bible, Greek myths and Celtic legends and ties it all together without making a messy murder of it all in the process. Really, concocts a witch's tantalizing brew. Beyond the general escapism, beyond the killer-caught/justice-served catharsis, there is definite literary value here. Notes that just, well, they just make you smile: Aunt Agatha dedicated this novel to P.G. Wodehouse, whose books and stories have brightened my life for many years. Also, to show my pleasure in his having been kind enough to tell me he enjoyed my books.
—R.
