Her marriage to Archie was breaking down she needed an income, but lacked the creative muse. It was a time of domestic strife for Agatha Christie. Originally, it was a series of 12 short stories that had been published in The Sketch magazine three years earlier in 1924 so Captain Hastings’ return from South America happened much more quickly than it might appear if you only read this as a new book in 1927. Part of the problem is its structure, and the story of how it came to be written. But it’s not a whodunit – you’re not faced with a bunch of suspects and one of them is No 4 – so you might ask, where is the suspense, the tension, the thriller, the mystery? Good question. The identities of two other members of the Big Four fall into place with relative ease, and it’s only The Destroyer, who flits in and out of the activity with almost farcical regularity, whose identity is concealed until relatively late in the day. We know this from the seventh page of the book, so I’m not giving away too many secrets here. The Fu-Manchu character is Li Chang Yen, known to only a few specialist orientophiles, who masterminds the group’s activities. Clearly inspired by the fiendish Dr Fu-Manchu, whose earliest incarnations in print were during the First World War, this is a book that takes as its central tenet the fact that there is a group of four evil criminals, so rich and powerful that the world quakes in their path, plotting their devilish crimes against humanity from a quarry in the Italian Tyrol, like some James Bond/Austin Powers villain. Let’s start by saying that, although this book unquestionably has a lot of fun, in many ways it’s absolutely bonkers and total balderdash. I’m not sure that’s possible in this case. Normally I make a promise not to spoil the surprise for you so that you can read this blog post before reading the book. In which Captain Hastings returns to England to be reunited with his old pal Hercule Poirot, and together they uncover the identities and crimes of an international group of four evil megalomaniacs aiming for world domination, and eventually put a stop to their wicked ways.
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