Review: Five little pigs by Agatha Christie

I am genuinely surprised that this novel of Christie's is not talked about more. This is one of my personal favorites and this time it was actually a re-read for me.

I've read Five Little Pigs for the first time about 7 years ago, and now that I have picked it up for the second time all I could remember was that I liked it a lot. I didn't remember who the murderer was, or how the book played out - so in a sense, my experience was like reading it for the first time. 

“One does not, you know, employ merely the muscles. I do not need to bend and measure the footprints and pick up the cigarette ends and examine the bent blades of grass. It is enough for me to sit back in my chair and think."

This novel is quite different from all others from Christie. To start of - there's no crime scene and no looking for fresh clues, this is a murder from the past. Poirot takes on a task of uncovering the truth of a murder that happened 16 years ago.  Such interesting premise makes for a completely different novel structure - and I think that it was because of this that I enjoyed it so much.

“What do most people mean when they say that ? So young. Something innocent, something appealing, something helpless. But youth is not that ! Youth is crude, youth is strong, youth is powerful-yes, and cruel ! And one thing more-youth is vulnerable."

Poirot himself is not very prominent in this book, although he is in every scene, he takes a background and lets the story weave itself, just occasionally butting in and asking questions. It's very uncharacteristic of him, as he is normally very pompous and quite weird little man. The whole book is comprised of him talking to people who were present at a murder scene - trying to get to the truth of what really happened that day.
Boring? You'd think so, but believe me it is not. 

---

Agatha Christie did a great job on this novel - weaving a story of hints and small details, leading the reader on and on, until the very end. I kept suspecting different people at different times, and in the end it wasn't the person who I thought it was. And I loved that! 

                      “With women, love always comes first.”

Another great mystery to the collection. I highly recommend this one. ​