Lord Edgware Dies by Agatha Christie

Lord Edgware was found murdered in his study. His wife, the noted actress Jane Wilkinson, had entered the house that evening at about the time the murder must have occurred according to the testimony of the remarkably handsome butler. The problem was that Jane Wilkinson had been at a dinner with several other people at the same time as she was seen entering Edgware's house.

There was really no shortage of people who would wish for Edgware's death. Jane Wilkinson who was a self absorbed, amoral actress had publicly said that she would kill him. She wanted a divorce so that she could marry the very wealthy but reclusive Lord Merton, but Lord Edgware had refused to give her a divorce.  Jane had engaged Poirot to go to Lord Edgware and to negotiate a divorce. Poirot had seen Lord Edgware on the morning of the day he died, and Edgware agree to divorce Jane much to surprise of Poirot and the joy of Jane. Edgware had a nephew who was in need of money and who would become the new Lord Edgware following the murder. Edgware had a daughter, Geraldine, who hated him.

Poirot undertakes an investigation on his own without being hired by anybody because he is fascinated by the case. Inspector Japp believes that he, Japp, has found a solution, but Poirot does not believe that he is correct. Other deaths will occur before the solution is reached.

I was very impressed with Christie's use of conversation in this book. Almost the whole story is told in the form of conversation with only a few narrative asides from Captain Hastings. Mainly Hastings expresses his thoughts that Poirot is becoming too old to actively handle investigations, and that he spends too much time sitting in a chair using "the little grey cells".  The reader should also use his little grey cells because Poirot hits upon a solution early, and Christie had me so convinced that Poirot is right that both he and I failed to think about another possible solution along the same lines.

This book was published in 1933 and, of course, is still in print. This book also had the American title Thirteen at Dinner.

Do not judge a book by its cover. The cover of this edition has a gun and a Bible which is open to the Book of Nehemiah. Nobody in this book is killed by a gun. Nobody in this book seems to own a gun, and I do not believe the word gun appears in the book. There is one character in the book who is more than usually religious, but I am not sure how this relates to Nehemiah.