REVIEW: Curtain

Curtain
Author: Agatha Christie 

Curtain is the final Hercule Poirot mystery. Agatha Christie wrote this novel in the early 1940's, but it wasn't published until just before her death. The novel was published in the UK and US in late 1975. Christie passed away on January 12, 1976.   

I had a rough time reading this novel. I felt like I was actually watching Hercule Poirot die. It's a wonderful mystery and I have read it before. But after spending six years reading my way through all of Christie's mysteries in publication order, I really felt by the time I hit this final Poirot book that I was leaving an old friend behind. 

When I started, I had 80+ novels and short story collections by Agatha Christie on a dedicated shelf. They took up the entire space, double stacked, and a few stragglers on another shelf because there just wasn't enough room. The paperbacks were in bad shape. All of them were very old and in various stages of decay. Paperbacks just really aren't meant to hang around for 40 or 50 years. They had outlived their usefulness...covers coming off, spines broken, pages falling out.....

I read them one by one -- and let them go.....putting them into the recycle bin. 

And now.....after finishing Curtain.....I only have one final book left.  

My copy of this novel came in a slip cover case with 5 other Poirot novels. I bought the set at a garage sale one summer when I was 9 years old. I had to do chores all summer to pay my mom back for the $4 she gave me to buy the books. The book has been on my shelf all those years....through grade school, middle school, high school, college, multiple moves......and now, it got read for the very last time. It really did feel like saying goodbye to a friend. Just as in the book, it was time for Poirot to solve his last mystery and move onto the next world. And it's a goodbye of sorts to Agatha as well. This was the final novel she ever published while she was still alive. She wrote it during World War II so that if she died, Hercule Poirot would get an ending. But she didn't approve publication of this book until she was elderly and her death was approaching. I think she wanted this book to be one of her last. Her very final novel -- Sleeping Murder -- came out posthumously in 1976. 

Others felt the same way as I did when reading this book. At the time the book was published, the New York Times even ran a front page obituary for Poirot. 

The novel is set at Styles. The same country house where Poirot's first novel - The Mysterious Affair at Styles - was set. Totally fitting. Joining Poirot is the detective's old friend, Arthur Hastings. Poirot sent for Hastings to help him solve a series of murders. He suspects another guest at Styles of killing five people. Poirot does solve the case in a most dramatic way.....after he has already passed away. 

Adaptations: 

Television: The final episode of the long-running Poirot television series is this story. Poirot's last case. I can only imagine how difficult it was for David Suchet to film that episode!! It was the final episode to air, but the first of that final season to be filmed. There are some minor changes made, but the story stays relatively true to the original. 

The television episode is the only adaptation I found for this final Poirot tale. 

 I have to admit when I finished the book and watched the episode of Poirot I cried when he died. Luckily, I brewed tea and cuddled with my dog while watching, because I knew it was going to get to me. I was prepared for the feels. 

 This book has been on my bookshelves for almost 50 years. I read it this last time.....and said goodbye. 

Goodbye, Hercule. And farewell, Agatha -- thank you for all the mystery. You will always be the Queen of Crime. 

One last book to read on my journey through Agatha Christie's writing..... Sleeping Murder. I need to say goodbye to Jane Marple next.  And then.....the journey will be over. A goal that I set when I was 9 years old and biked home from a garage sale with a set of mystery novels. They were the first small print paperbacks I ever read.....my first "adult" level books. And as I read my way through them, I made a promise that I would read all of her books. I finally did it! 

It took me a long time, Agatha. But I kept my promise. :) And what a magnificent, entertaining and fun journey it has been!!  

On to the last book -- Sleeping Murder.