REVIEW: The Big Four

The Big Four
Author: Agatha Christie

For years I wanted to read everything Agatha Christie wrote....every book, every short story and each play. But life is always so busy....and Christie wrote more than 60 detective novels and 14 short story collections. I came to love Christie's books when I was 9 and bought my first Hercule Poirot books at a garage sale. For years, I carried a tattered list of her books I didn't already own in my purse, buying titles to fill in my collection when I could. But I never found time to read most of them.....and in the pre-internet age it was difficult to keep track of them all. Some books were published under one title in the UK and another in the US....or some stories weren't available in the US at all. And book listings in the front of paperbacks were not necessarily in order. It just became too Herculean a task .....and life whirled me away in other directions.

Until now.

Armed with the internet, digital library offerings, and my own book collection, I have finally started my Christie quest. And I'm loving every minute of it!!

The Big Four was published in the UK and the US in 1927 and features one of Christie's most popular characters, Hercule Poirot. I was excited to reach this title in my quest because this is my first reading of this Poirot mystery!! I own a tattered paperback from the early 1980s, but never read it. I'm sure I picked up the copy at a thriftshop, garage sale or used book store somewhere and was delighted to cross the title off my Christie shopping list...but then the paperback joined the collection on my shelves and was never enjoyed. I have now happily rectified that situation! I'm really not sure how I missed out on reading this book. It was published just weeks after Christie disappeared for 11 days (December 3-14, 1926). Public interest in her disappearance and eventual discovery at a hotel in Harrogate caused sales of The Big Four to skyrocket. I never knew this interesting fact until now. If I had, I might have read this book long before 2020! As it is, knowing a bit more about the background (the internet can be a wonderful learning tool!) of the story and its timing, made this an even more enjoyable audio book for me. 

The audio version I listened to is narrated by Hugh Fraser (Harper Audio). Fraser gives a great performance. The unabridged audio is 5 1/2 hours...so it's a relatively easy listen.

The Big Four is actually a mashup of several earlier published short stories centering around the diabolical antics of a international group of four criminal masterminds. The stories were first published in the Sketch magazine in the UK from January - March 1924. US publication in Blue Book Magazine followed in March 1927 - January 1928. The 12 short stories are: The Unexpected Guest, The Adventure of the Dartmoor Bungalow, The Lady on the Stairs, The Radium Thieves, In the House of the Enemy, The Yellow Jasmine Mystery, The Chess Problem, The Baited Trap, The Adventure of the Peroxide Blonde, The Terrible Catastrophe, The Dying Chinaman, and the Crag in the Dolomites. Each story was worked into one or two chapters of The Big Four. The stories are all interconnected and assembled as a novel the tales actually flow pretty well. I would never have known the story started out as different short tales had I not learned as much while doing pre-reading research into the book. I can see why Christie went this route.....her personal life at the time was in tatters. Her mother had died, she was deeply depressed, her husband left her for another woman.....who can write a new, glorious murder mystery while perhaps having suicidal, dark, depressed thoughts? She cobbled together prior stories that work perfectly well together....and granted herself some time to work on her personal life. Kudos, Agatha!

The book was adapted by the television series Poirot in its final season.

The basics: Poirot gets a surprise visit from an old friend, Captain Hastings. But, they don't get to have a relaxing reunion.....the two are pulled into international intrigue as a group of 4 mysterious criminals attempt to further their attempts to gain world dominance. While the concept of taking over the world through nefarious means is now a cheesy plot, back when this book was written the plot wasn't cliche. There were a couple times as I listened to this story that my mind pulled up visions of Dr. Evil, Mojo JoJo and James Bond villains.....but all in all, it is an enjoyable Poirot adventure. A bit dated....but enjoyable.

There were spots in this tale that I found a bit .....   racist isn't the term I'm looking for really. Let's say...racially or culturally insensitive. The plot pretty much jumps right into the concept that The Bad Guys must be affiliated with American criminals, Russians or the Chinese. And a few antiquated terms (like coolie) are used. But, the book is nearly 100 years old. Political intrigue tales just don't age very well. The cultural concepts of 1920s England just seem a bit cheesy, cliche and insensitive in 2020. Even so, I still enjoyed Poirot and Hastings sleuthing out the identities of these 4 sneaky, international masterminds. They tried to trick, out maneuver and even kill the master detective. Silly ploy....they were the Diet Coke of Evil....not quite evil enough. ha ha. 

So glad I finally read this book!! I wish I could read the stories in their original format.  I'm going to do some sleuthing of my own and see if I can't ferret out the original tales online just so I can say that I read them. Moving on to the next novel: The Mystery of the Blue Train! (Another Christie novel I haven't read before!)