Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie

When a bratty girl claims to have seen a murder, nobody seems to believe her. But when she turns up murdered after a small community's Hallowe'en party, there may very well be some credence to the child's wold claim. On the request of an old friend, Hercule Poirot leaves his flat in London to assist with the investigation. Every witness claims that the deceased was a compulsive liar, leaving Poirot without a suspect. But the deeper he digs, the renowned detective becomes entangled with the exploits of a contested will, a missing au pair girl and the death of a legal aid with a shady past.

I struck gold this past summer finding this Halloween themed novel by Agatha Christie. I also found an Christmas mystery that I look forward to reading in December. I had been wanting to see the Kenneth Branagh led A Haunting in Venice and was disappointed to see that the film was stuck on streaming channels that I don't subscribe to. Well, you know how folks annoyingly say 'The book was better.'? Well, I got a chance to say just that because A Haunting in Venice is based on this 1969 novel. (Okay- I still haven't seen the movie!!!) Only there's no scenes in Italy. 

This is late Agatha Christie. She only released a couple more books before her death in 1976. I don't know if the writer had become kind of disillusioned with the mod and counterculture Generation of England. Maybe she was alarmed by the rise of youth violence both by them and against them. Surely, Christie felt that crimes had become more sordid as the result of the British government releasing a number of mental patients into the populace as it seems just about every body in town thinks that a deranged drifter raped the loudmouth girl before killing her. I'm not kidding! It seems only Poirot and his old friend, an aging mystery writer, who is clearly a literary version of the author, who hold steadfast that there's some other ulterior motive behind the murder. 

I wonder why Christie didn't have Miss Marple team up with Poirot in this book because next to the famed mystery writer, the fictional version here seems a lot like the spinster sleuth. I digress...

Anyway, this book seems to read a lot like an Agatha Christie TED talk that combines the author's rants to keep kids off her lawn while attempting to solve a homicide. It wouldn't be so bad if this book wasn't so darn repetitive. You know how in those comedies with a narrator that the speaker makes an observation before the main character exclaims exactly what the unseen voice just said? That's how this book reads. I don't think I have ever read the words 'vegetable marrow' in my 48 years of life. But here, the term is used a dozen times in the first chapter alone and most of the time is in the fictional writer's head. Basically, pick an odd, random British term for an object and every chapter seems to fall into this repetitive trap to the point of silliness. 

Was this a good read? Sure. It just wasn't my favorite Agatha Christie read. After like the third or fourth chapter, none of the action takes place on October 31st, although Poirot keeps coming back to that fateful night in his questioning. I felt that the solution was adequate despite that there is at least 1 red herring. A little misdirection that sadly never gets resolved. But I'm okay with that. Although, doesn't that mean that there's still a killer on the loose in this idyllic British village? 

Now that's a frightening prospect.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.