Second paragraph of third chapter:

He had at first been amused by the English girl’s interest in this American family, shrewdly diagnosing that it was inspired by interest in one particular member of the group. But now something out of the ordinary about this family party awakened in him the deeper, more impartial interest of the scientist. He sensed that there was something here of definite psychological interest.

This came to the top of my list of books set in Jordan a few weeks back; the first few chapters are set in 1930s Jerusalem, but the scene then moves to Petra, where the actual murder takes place, and then to Amman, where Poirot spends about half of the total page count solving it. The victim is a horrible character who has bullied her entire family into terrified submission; the question is, which of them bumped her off and how? There’s some very well done Christie-style deflection, where they try to cover for each other, though the actual solution to the crime is not really flagged at all to the reader, so I think it counts as one of the less fair whodunnits in her oeuvre. But the family dynamics are very well depicted.

There is a happy flashforward at the end to show all of the survivors living happily ever after. The book was published in 1938, and we are meant to think that 1943 will be the same only a bit better.

I looked into the setting of the King Solomon Hotel in Jerusalem; it’s pretty clear that this is meant to be a fictional version of the King David Hotel (though in fact today there is a King Solomon Hotel on the same street). There is a little local political commentary in that Mahmoud the dragoman (guide/ translator) keeps boring the Western tourists by going on about the Zionists / Jews. (Nice and a little surprising to see anti-Semitism portrayed as a negative character trait for a change.) But in terms of politics, a much more interesting character is Lady Westholme.

Lady Westholme was a very well-known figure in the English political world. When Lord Westholme, a middle-aged, simple-minded peer, whose only interests in life were hunting, shooting and fishing, was returning from a trip to the United States, one of his fellow passengers was a Mrs. Vansittart. Shortly afterwards Mrs. Vansittart became Lady Westholme. The match was often cited as one of the examples of the danger of ocean voyages. The new Lady Westholme lived entirely in tweeds and stout brogues, bred dogs, bullied the villagers and forced her husband pitilessly into public life. It being borne in upon her, however, that politics was not Lord Westholme’s métier in life and never would be, she graciously allowed him to resume his sporting activities and herself stood for Parliament. Being elected with a substantial majority, Lady Westholme threw herself with vigor into political life, being especially active at Question time. Cartoons of her soon began to appear (always a sure sign of success). As a public figure she stood for the old-fashioned values of Family Life, Welfare work amongst Women, and was an ardent supporter of the League of Nations. She had decided views on questions of Agriculture, Housing and Slum Clearance. She was much respected and almost universally disliked! It was highly possible that she would be given an Under Secretaryship when her Party returned to power. At the moment a Liberal Government (owing to a split in the National Government between Labor and Conservatives) was somewhat unexpectedly in power.

You don’t read Agatha Christie for sophisticated political commentary – the notion that the Liberals could have formed a minority government in the 1930s was ludicrous. (In the 1935 election they had lost half their seats and were reduced to 12 MPs.) We are clearly meant to read Lady Westholme as a direct parody of Nancy Astor, who was also American, had an aristocratic husband, was the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons and was an outspoken Conservative (and anti-Semite and anti-Communist). One can only take those comparisons so far, of course, because…

Spoiler

For

A

Book

Published

In

1938

Continue reading →