“Let us see, Mr Clever Poirot, just how clever you can be.”

Captain Hastings is visiting his old friend Hercule Poirot, and, just as they are discussing what sort of murder they would prefer to solve, a letter arrives, from someone signing themselves “ABC”, telling Poirot to look to Andover on the 21^st of the month. When that date comes round, a body is found, Mrs Alice Ascher, dead on the floor of the newsagents that she owns, with an ABC train timetable next to the body.

When Betty Barnard is found dead at Bexhill-on-Sea , it seems that a maniac is at large. Can Poirot track down the killer before Zebedee Zaccheus is found murdered in Zanzibar?

After Poirot’s “retirement” in The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd, Hastings finally points out to him that he, well, hasn’t. Poirot announces, after mentioning a few of his cases that Hastings wasn’t around for, that he now picks and chooses his cases, before deciding that the ABC case is well worth his time. Poirot also predicts a couple of cases as well, citing the circumstances of Cards On The Table – two books to go before that one actually happens – as his perfect murder, and also hinting at the events of Curtain, written approximately five years later.

Hastings’ business arrangements need a mention too. He’s left his wife to manage his South American ranch – is it really necessary for his business to take a six month trip back to England, or is it just so he can ogle a pretty suspect or two without his wife noticing?

So, to the case at hand, and, let’s face it, this is one of Christie’s masterpieces. I’ll freely admit, I am biased as it was my entry into my Christie reading – I loved it when I was eleven and I love it now, even after my fifth or so reading of it.

One of the strengths of it perhaps hasn’t aged as well as it might have, which is the reveal of the murderer. At this stage of her writing, Christie’s pattern perhaps hadn’t been set in stone, and a lot of her contemporaries were more than happy to write about the chase of a known villain. People these days probably expect there to be a surprise and going into the book expecting that a certain character is NOT the killer would perhaps make the killer easier to spot. Thinking that this might be Christie’s go at telling the tale of an insane multiple murderer makes the surprise all the more stunning. Even so, it’s a damn good surprise.

Are there any flaws? Yes, one. The killer chooses killers with alliterative names – Alice Ascher, Betty Barnard, Carmichael Clarke, etc, yet this never gets mentioned. Surely this would narrow down possible victims and certainly makes something in Doncaster more obvious – in fact, perhaps this is why they don’t mention it…

So, onto the ranking so far, and this one’s easy to put in the list. Very, very easy…

Anyway, over to the current ranking…

Ranking Poirot (So Far)

1. The ABC Murders
2. The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd
3. The Mysterious Affair At Styles
4. Peril At End House
5. Murder On The Orient Express
6. Three Act Tragedy
7. Lord Edgware Dies
8. Death In The Clouds
9. The Murder On The Links
10. Poirot Investigates
11. The Mystery Of The Blue Train
12. The Big Four
13. Black Coffee

Next up, our first trip to the desert with Poirot for Murder In Mesopotamia, where love truly is blind…