Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie Narrator: Hugh Fraser
Series: Hercule Poirot #36
Published by Harper Audio on July 3, 2012
Source: Library
Genres: Vintage Mystery
Length: 6 hrs 45 mins
Pages: 256
Format: Audiobook
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A revolution in the Middle East has a direct and deadly impact upon the summer term at Meadowbank, a picture-perfect girls' school in the English countryside. Prince Ali Yusuf, Hereditary Sheikh of Ramat, whose great liberalizing experiment -- 'hospitals, schools, a Health Service' -- is coming to chaos, knows that he must prepare for the day of his exile. He asks his pilot and school friend, Bob Rawlinson, to care for a packet of jewels. Rawlinson does so, hiding them among the possessions of his niece, Jennifer Sutcliffe, who is bound for Meadowbank. Rawlinson is killed before he can reveal the hiding place—or even the fact that he has employed his niece as a smuggler. But someone knows, or suspects, that Jennifer has the jewels. As murder strikes Meadowbank, only Hercule Poirot can restore the peace.
I shouldn’t actually like Cat Among the Pigeons. Spies and political intrigue are not usually my favorites, especially when it comes to a Christie novel, but this one is fun. Our set up is that during the revolution in a small Middle Eastern country, the king gave some jewels to his best friend to sneak out of the country. Those very valuable jewels end up at a girls’ school in England, leading to a couple of murders and a kidnapping.
Poirot doesn’t show up until maybe two-thirds of the way into this one. The reader knows where the jewels are hidden but not who is after them or who the murderer is. A fun amateur sleuth puts together some of the pieces and heads off to London to ask for Poirot’s help.
This was a reread for me and I did remember a couple of the twists, but that doesn’t make it less fun. This time I listened to the audio version read by Hugh Fraser. He does a fabulous job with the Poirot stories and, even with all the female characters in this one, the voices fit the personalities and it was relatively easy to keep track of everyone.
About Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English crime novelist, short story writer and playwright. She is best known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around her fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world’s longest-running play, a murder mystery, The Mousetrap, and six romances under the name Mary Westmacott. In 1971 she was elevated to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her contribution to literature.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
Sounds like the perfect level of Poirot, for me.