Almost done reading all of Dame Agatha's novels. Only three remain now. This one was pleasurable in that it featured one of my favourite characters, Ariadne Oliver, who is being her usual scatty, bewildered self. Against her better judgment, Mrs. Oliver attends a literary luncheon. After the meal, she gets cornered by one of the bossy, pushy women that she loathes, Mrs. Buxton-Cox. This person proceeds to question Mrs. Oliver about the family history of one of her god-daughters, Celia. Apparently Celia's parents were found shot in a likely murder-suicide and Mrs. B-C wants to know who killed who, as her son is planning to marry Celia.
After escaping this harrowing situation, Ariadne goes directly to her good friend Hercule Poirot. Can the two of them determine the circumstances of Celia's parents deaths? Ariadne goes in search of people who have memories of that period of time and the principals involved—she refers to these folk as “elephants,” those who don't forget. I loved her metaphor of going elephant hunting.
I enjoyed the novel despite the fact that I easily divined the solution to the mystery. This is highly unusual, as Dame Agatha bamboozles me regularly. I will be interested to see what the final novels are like.
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