Certainly the murder scene was most unusual. A typist, sent by a secretarial agency to do some typing for an elderly blind woman, almost trips over the dead body of a man in the woman's house. In the room with the body, there are five clocks - four of them set to 4:13. The woman who owns the house insists she did not call the agency asking for a typist - nor does she own the extra clocks. Nor, for that matter, does anyone know the dead man, whose body has had all possible identification marks removed.
That's the rather fantastic situation which opens Agatha Christie's "The Clocks," a 1963 novel featuring an aging Hercule Poirot. "The Clocks" is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to that review by clicking here.
"The Clocks" is unusual in that there are really two separate mysteries in play here, with some of the key characters overlapping. There is the murder mystery and, interwoven with it, there is an espionage story line as well. Poirot really is involved primarily in the murder mystery. In fact, he only operates more or less on the fringes of the story - one or more of the characters bring him reports about the case and Poirot exercises his "little grey cells" to solve the mystery. And - in typical Poirot fashion - he is adamant on one point, in this seemingly complex and bizarre case: "It must be a very simple crime...because it appears so complex. If it has necessarily to appear complex, it must be simple."
I would have to admit that "The Clocks" isn't my favorite Christie novel. I missed the more active participation of Poirot. I also felt that the complex setup really deserved a better "payoff" than we are given - but that may just be the usual "is that all there is" moment that readers frequently get when they find out how the author has legitimately misled them. It is still a Christie novel, with all that implies in terms of characters and plot development, and it is a lot of fun. The Clocks is also available in an inexpensive edition for the Amazon Kindle.
I loved the set-up to this one, but hated the pay-off. The explanation for the titular clocks is particularly poor. On the bright side, the TV adaptation adds some good plotlines to make the explanations more interesting. Nothing as radical as Nazi lesbian nuns, though (and such a pity!).
Posted by: Patrick | October 03, 2011 at 03:15 PM
That's exactly the problem I had with it, Patrick - the set up, I think, didn't pay off properly. Though I wonder how the spy thriller part of the novel might have played out with Nazi lesbian nuns. Now I have to get that image out of my brain...
Posted by: Les Blatt | October 03, 2011 at 04:30 PM
You know, I don't remember Poirot being in this book at all. I thought the man doing the sleuthing was the guy who grabs the girl running screaming out of the house. He's a spy coincidentally at the same time trying to find an address.
I like this book more than you did though I always thought the explanation for the 'rosemary' clock was lame.
Posted by: Yvette | October 07, 2011 at 05:17 PM
That was the problem for me, Yvette - Poirot was mostly peripheral. The "man doing the sleuthing" brought his information to Poirot, who proceeded to solve it at a distance, while his friend solved the espionage part of the problem and, not coincidentally, married the girl. As you say, the explanation for the rosemary clock WAS a little lame. It's not, by any means, Christie's worst, but I think it's not on a par with her best, either.
Posted by: Les Blatt | October 09, 2011 at 10:42 AM