Out of 5 mustaches
This is one of those mysteries inside the mystery kind of mystery. You'll know what I mean in a second.
The story starts by introducing us to a Dr. Shaitana, a London socialite, who has invited a weird mix of guests to dinner. The mix is himself plus 4 "detectives" and 4 "murderers." These 4 murderers have been real murderers, just never convicted. They are: Mrs. Lorrimer, well-mannered woman of sixty; Dr. Roberts, a cordial and hearty doctor; the shy and pretty Anne Meredith; and Major Despard, a handsome man who travels a great deal. The 4 "good guys" are: Superintendent Battle, of Scotland Yard; Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, famous author of detective stories; Colonel Race, of His Majesty's foreign secret service; and our hero, Hercule Poirot. After dinner, they separate the two "groups" in different rooms to play bridge. Before the night is over, Shaitana is stabbed (Christie likes stabbing and poisoning) in the chest. Shaitana knew something about each one of the "murderers" and was going to impart some knowledge to the "sleuths", but before he could, one of the bad 4 killed him. Which one was it? Now, each of our 4 detectives investigates the bad guys' background. Only one was capable of stabbing Shaitana, or was it all 4 of them?
The problem with this book is that there is an investigation into the backgrounds of the 4 murderers, but not enough is put into them. Christie doesn't make any of these 4 backgrounds important. Colonel Race is barely in the book (a total of about 10 pages), and Poirot doesn't do anything (he doesn't even think about the case). He wastes time on the result of the bridge game (the bad guys' game) too much and too long. The nice thing about this book is that it is the first time Poirot meets Mrs. Oliver (who returns in other Poirot books later). The problem with Mrs. Oliver is that she is so overbearing, rude, and feministic that it made me sick. She's much better in the other novels. She's actually smart and mellow in the other ones. It was a nice thing to have Battle, a great policeman, and Race, a character I love, to be in the book.