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I had no idea I was capable of hating so indifferent a book so passionately. It's like Agatha Christie decided to pull a carefully crafted ACD-style "fuck you" to her readership and this was the result. That so many people regard this as the best of her novels is appalling. I don't want to become the Linus Torvald of goodreads reviewers (I am really, really not remotely in the same league of being a jerk (or the same league of intelligence or creativity, alas)), but seriously: this book sucks. Everyone is an idiot or an asshole or some unholy combination of both. Hastings is at his absolute worst; watching him bumble around and fail to evince a shred of empathy for a single human being who doesn't match his expectations is nigh-painful - not that it matters because everyone sucks. Usually he's pretty charming - this, the dude who starts the novel in which he meets his future wife by complaining that the hottie on the train used the word "hell," okay - and his impulsiveness and tendency to jump to the most immediately available conclusion serves some purpose, but it doesn't here because no one - but no one - is developed any further than they initially appear - it isn't the point of the novel, you see. It's like - there's this story that they threw darts to determine of conclusion of BSG - it's like Agatha Christie did that, but the dartboard was Agatha Christie Stock Characters, and then she just didn't bother. And no, "modern scientist has old-fashioned ideas about divorce" does not count. And the resolution? More idiotic and assholish than every character combined.

(view spoiler)[I don't mean the solution to the mystery, although that's bad enough. That almost everyone in the world is constantly teetering on the brink of actual murder and all it takes is a gentle push from an innocuous source is a stupid enough pill to swallow - not stirring shit between coworkers, not coaxing the family into uproar over dinner and sitting back to bask in your own superiority, but literal murder? And then to go one step further and argue that these people were so deep in the Norton Thrall that they cannot be held responsible for their actions? COME THE FUCK ON. We hold people responsible for driving drunk, but most people know, sober, that driving drunk is morally reprehensible. We hold people on PCP responsible for trying to set fire to ambulances even though most people know, sober, that trying to set fire to ambulances or jerking off at cops or WHATEVER is not such a hot idea. And we should, because those things are terrible. So if you want someone to believe that your villain is playing these people like a fucking Stradivarius, you're going to have to take the fingertapes off of psychological suggestion. Whoops, someone saw someone I love making out with someone whom I think is shitty, and reminded me that I feel inadequate to the task of taking care of those whom I love - who don't need or want my care anyway - where did I put my sleeping pills. Whoops, someone reminded me I hate my family and I'm lonely and poor, good thing I have so many rare ~native~ poisons handy. But bizarrely, this is not the the thing I hate about this book. I don't read murder mysteries for insight into the human condition any more than I read them for their top notch police or medical work.

No the unforgivable thing about this book is that I am subjected to Hastings - this stupidest, shittiest Hastings - for absolutely no reason. He exists, in the framework of this novel, to be stupid and shitty enough not to notice that Poirot intended to commit murder. No one would have suspected anyway! That it's Hatings and Poirot, hunting together for the last time, makes for an affecting ending - somewhat ruined by Poirot's great advice to Hastings, "everyone you love is dead or gone; maybe you should marry these sweet but basically non-character of a woman with whom you exchanged maybe 30 words whose life has been so bad that maybe she won't notice how terrible you are; you're pretty useless on your own" - and yes, I was honestly a little devastated by Poirot's uncertainty at the end, the worst way to go for him. Maybe it was emotionally manipulative, but I'm fine with that. Too bad that everything leading up to it was godawful. (hide spoiler)]