Elephants Can Remember (Poirot)

Agatha Christie

Oct 2010 · HarperCollins UK

About this eBook

Hercule Poirot is determined to solve an old husband and wife double murder that is still an open verdict...

Hercule Poirot stood on the cliff-top. Here, many years earlier, there had been a tragic accident. This was followed by the grisly discovery of two more bodies – a husband and wife – shot dead.

But who had killed whom? Was it a suicide pact? A crime of passion? Or cold-blooded murder? Poirot delves back into the past and discovers that ‘old sin leave long shadows’.

Ratings and reviews

I found this book laborious and an effort to get into. The first half is too drawn out and slow. It picks up towards the end but for me it was a chore to read. A very unremarkable and easily forgettable book.

This is the first Agatha Christie that I have not enjoyed. The first half comprises an exhaustive account of interviews of elderly witnesses. The final denoument is entirely predictable, unlike that in most of her books where there is an unexpected twist.

I haven't read any Agatha Christie novel before this. But I am fan of her now. This book failed to hook me in the first half but as the story moved forward it holds you to want to know eagerly what happens next. The ending was a bit unpredictable. It feels a bit stretched in the beginning as there a lot of details t regarding certain things that carry no importance in the story. Otherwise, a good read!

About the author

Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890 and became, quite simply, the best-selling novelist in history. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written towards the end of the First World War, introduced us to Hercule Poirot, who was to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes. She is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in over 100 foreign languages. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays, and six novels under the name of Mary Westmacott.