In Agatha Christie’s classic puzzler Taken at the Flood, the indefatigable Hercule Poiroit investigates the troubling case of a twice-widowed woman.
A few weeks after marrying an attractive widow, Gordon Cloade is tragically killed by a bomb blast in the London blitz. Overnight, the former Mrs. Underhay finds herself in sole possession of the Cloade family fortune.
Shortly afterward, Hercule Poirot receives a visit from the dead man’s sister-in-law who claims she has been warned by “spirits” that Mrs. Underhay’s first husband is still alive. Poirot has his suspicions when he is asked to find a missing person guided only by the spirit world. Yet what mystifies Poirot most is the woman’s true motive for approaching him . . .
Agatha Christie was born in 1890 and created the detective Hercule Poirot in her debut novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920). She achieved wide popularity with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) and produced a total of eighty novels and short-story collections over six decades.
My Impressions:
In my house a road trip is synonymous with Agatha Christie and a classic Hercule Poirot novel read by Hugh Fraser. My husband and I listened to Taken at The Flood during our one week trip around the southeast. We had actually tried to listen to this book in December as part of our bowl game excursion, but it just didn’t catch our attention. So we tried again to much greater success. In fact, this twisting mystery took both of us by surprise! Recommended.
Hercule Poirot makes a brief appearance in the beginning of Taken at The Flood, but does not play a major role in the story until way past the halfway point. Christie uses the majority of the book to set up the backstory of the Cloade family — their relationships, personalities, and varied motives. I actually liked this quite a bit. My husband was, however, impatient for the mystery-solving to begin. The mystery takes quite a few turns, and more than one dead person shows up. The ending is tied up in classic Poirot style, and we were pleasantly surprised. We did not see it coming!
If you are a fan of classic mysteries, I recommend Taken at The Flood. Just be patient for the amazing Poirot’s appearance.
Recommended.
Audience: adults.
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(I purchased the audiobook from Audible. All opinions expressed are mine alone.)
I love Agatha Christie and I love audiobooks 🙂
My husband and I are big Hugh Fraser/Hercule Poirot fans! We really enjoyed this one.