Elephants Can Remember, by Agatha Christie

Elephants Can Remember is a mystery novel by Agatha Christie featuring her well known detective Poirot. The story is that of the shooting of a couple done many years past, and Poirot is called in to investigate if he shot her or she shot him. Despite the difficulties of the difference in time, Poirot, with Ariadne Oliver, discovers the "elephants", those who were there at the time who remember something about the case, and piece together what happened.

Agatha Christie novels are always quite interesting to read, and this isn't really an exception. The plot, and the ending, was to me quite predictable, but I have a feeling I may have seen a dramatisation of this story on TV some years ago. Regardless, there's always details that are hard to discern concerning motive.

I did, perhaps, find the book a little bit long winded. There were one or two details that seemed to be overdone - not, incidentally, things that would be remarkable in the real world, but in the world of the mystery writer, there's lots to be read into any fact that crops up more than once.

My only other real criticism is that it revealed unneccessarily plot details of some other books early on, and while I don't really mind talking about history (it's free advertising too I suppose) I'd rather there wasn't much detail about it. On the same note, in the version I have, the back reveals far too much about the plot. When I approach a mystery book, all I want to know is rough background - I want to know what someone at the time would know if they read a newspaper, for example.

There's not much more to say really, though. It's a typical Agatha Christie book - fairly complex but not massively so, full of characters who aren't always quite what they seem and there's plenty of secrets, but this feels more like a book about the situation rather than a true mystery, and perhaps this lets it down a little.

Overall, it's fairly standard mystery fare - not a bad read, but not one that stood out to me as particularly special.

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