Ah, Dame Agatha, as tricksy as the Fae, really. She is such a magician, waving a hand over here to catch your attention while she unobtrusively manipulates something with the other hand. There were so many plausible red herrings in this novel. I completely misjudged several characters and was led astray by the fishy aroma of those herrings! By the end, I was willing to believe anyone but Poirot himself had murdered the woman in question.
As usual, Christie gives us a well known selection of suspects to choose from: a businessman with a teenage daughter from a previous marriage and a former actress as wife. An obvious paramour for said wife, who has a resentful spouse of his own. An old boring military man. An obnoxious loudmouth who is avoided by all. An American couple acting very stereotypically American. An old friend of the first businessman's family who is a successful businesswoman in her own right. A former churchman with a religious mania. The possibilities abound! Especially if you start to consider that more than one person may be involved. Looking back, I can see how skillfully my expectations were set up.
I think my biggest surprise, however, was the sympathy for the murder victim displayed by Poirot and by extension by Christie herself. I wonder if she knew a similar person in her own life? As the men of the novel observe several times, Arlena's enemies seem to be exclusively female. Women tend to dislike femme fatale types for obvious reasons.
As an aside, it was a pleasant thing to read about the seaside and picnicking on a cold, snowy day in my city. Christie picks such lovely settings for her crime scenes. It makes me want to book a getaway at Bigbury-on-Sea, the reputed real world model for Leathercombe Bay.
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