Black Coffee (Wheeler Large Print Book Series) - Hardcover

Osborne, Charles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1568956258 ISBN 13: 9781568956251

Publisher: Wheeler Pub Inc, 1999

Synopsis

216pages. in12. Broché.

About this title

Review:

Subtitled "A New Hercule Poirot Novel", Black Coffee is actually an Agatha Christie play recrafted as a book meant to be read rather than seen on the stage. The story was first produced in 1930, and Charles Osborne has done little to it except string the dialogue and stage directions together in paragraph form. Christie loyalists will welcome and applaud his dedication to the original, but it does seem as though he could have given it a bit more flair. Still, Poirot himself, bumbling Captain Hastings, and obsequious George are all in good form and it is amusing to find them engaged in another adventure, with an interesting assortment of possible murderers, blackmailers, and innocent (if suspicious) bystanders.

The novel opens as Poirot receives a summons at his breakfast table from England's premier physicist, Sir Claud Amory. Busy working on a new formula necessary for England's defence in the second world war, Amory suspects a member of his household of espionage. Of course, by the time Poirot and sidekick Hastings arrive at the scientist's country house, he is mysteriously dead. Amory himself turns out to have been not so nice, and his family, regardless of his scientific efforts, is pretty pleased with the new state of affairs. Still, Poirot manages both to save the more amiable members of the household from themselves and to protect the secrets of the British Empire. The novel is warmly evocative of another time and place and a welcome reminder of vintage Christie. --K.A. Crouch

Review:

‘A lively and light-hearted read which will give pleasure to all those who have long wished that there was just one more Christie to devour’
Antonia Fraser, Sunday Telegraph

‘Reads like authentic, vintage Christie. I feel sure Agatha would be proud to have written it’
Mathew Prichard, Agatha Christie’s grandson

About this edition

• Publisher: Wheeler Pub Inc
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1568956258
• ISBN 13: 9781568956251
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 216