Reviews

While I read through Agatha Christie's novels with the Appointments with Agatha group, I'm putting a templated synopsis of each novel in my review. It has spoilers!

Book: 46 of Christie's novels, 28 of Hercule Poirot novels
Setting: A student hostel
Detective and Companions: Hercule Poirot, Inspector Sharpe
Crime: Items are going missing in a student hostel. Celia Austin admits to some of them, and the next day she is murdered with morphia.
Suspects:
- Sally Finch, an American student on a Fulbright scholarship
- Colin McNabb, a psychology student whom Celia was infatuated with
- Leonard "Len" Bateson, a medical student who is kind but has a hot temper
- Nigel Chapman, a student with a devil-may-care attitude who enjoys annoying others
- Valèrie Hobhouse, who works in a beauty parlour
- Elizabeth Johnston, a Jamaican student who is quiet and hardworking
- Jean Tomlinson, a physiotherapist who is pious
- Patricia Lane, a student who cares for Nigel in a motherly way
- Akibombo, an African student who is longwinded and has a mediocre grasp of English
- Chandra Lal, an Indian student who speaks little English
- Gopal Ram, an Indian student
- Geneviève Maricaud, a French student
René Halle, a French student

Twists and Turns:
- The list of missing items doesn't seem to make sense. Celia admits to stealing the beauty and fashion-related items, but there are lots of random things like boracic powder and electric light bulbs on the list that aren't attributed to Celia. Christie quite cleverly provides plausible reasons for all of them throughout the book.
- Celia claims to have stolen the items because she is a kleptomanic. Poirot initially believes that she stole them to get Colin's attention, a strategy that was successful. Eventually, it is found out that Valèrie suggested this idea to Celia to confuse Celia, as Celia had found out that Valèrie owned passports which she used in a smuggling operation.
- The clue is Len Bateson's rucksack, which was cut up. Poirot deduces that the cheap rucksacks from the shop down the road that the students bought their rucksacks from were involved in a drug-smuggling operation, and the rucksack had been hastily destroyed when police came to the hostel investigating an unrelated incident.
- Nigel has morphia in his possession, which both makes him a likely and the most unlikely suspect. It gets even more twisted as Patricia says she substituted the morphia for sodium bicarbonate, then later, it is discovered that someone substituted the morphia for boracic acid before Patricia made the substitution. Ultimately, it is Nigel who used the morphia on Celia.
- Green ink belonging to Nigel was poured on Elizabeth Johnston's notes. This seems to frame Nigel, but it was actually Nigel who poured the ink as a double-bluff.
- When Nigel is at the police station, Patricia calls him. The police and Nigel return to the hostel to find Patricia dead. But actually Nigel killed Patricia, and Valèrie as his accomplice had made the call.

There are lots of red herrings and complex twists and turns in this story. You think you know the mystery, but it turns out to be a much different, and more sinister story. I marked down stars simply because a significant portion of the sleuthing wasn't actually done by Poirot, and several mysteries were elucidated just through the interactions between the students. I was also uncomfortable with the blatant racism, especially regarding Akibombo.