Peril at End House (Hercule Poirot, #8) by Agatha Christie

 

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery
Content: Clean

 

Hercule Poirot is vacationing on the Cornish coast when he meets Nick Buckly. Nick is the young and reckless mistress of End House, an imposing structure perched on the rocky cliffs of St. Loo.

Poirot has taken a particular interest in the young woman who has recently narrowly escaped a series of life-threatening accidents. Something tells the Belgian sleuth that these so-called accidents are more than just mere coincidences or a spate of bad luck. It seems all too clear to him that someone is trying to do away with poor Nick, but who? And, what is the motive? In his quest for answers, Poirot must delve into the dark history of End House. The deeper he gets into his investigation, the more certain he is that the killer will soon strike again. And, this time, Nick may not escape with her life.

 

This was yet another good Hercule Poirot mystery with a twist I didn't see coming. One slight negative for me was that there are too many people coincidentally in the same place at the same time. This has been a thing in more than one of these books, but the other aspects of the stories are so good that I don't care too much. Hastings is back in this one, but his wife is almost not mentioned at all, which I thought was weird. I would actually have liked to have gotten more info on how their relationship was going, and it wouldn't be a bad thing if she showed up in another book either. 

Other than those small gripes, I enjoyed this book quite a lot. I thought it was cleverly done as always. As for the TV episode, I thought it was really well done too. It was cut into two parts, unlike the others I've watched, and I thought it stayed faithful to the book, with only small changes.

 

“In an old house,’ he said, ‘there is sometimes an atmosphere of evil."