Closed Casket by Sophie Hannah
This is the third of Sophie Hannah’s Poirot novels that I have read. While the Belgian himself is not growing on me, necessarily, I do find these books enjoyable enough to continue reading them.
In this book, Poirot and his Scotland Yard inspector friend, Edward Catchpool, have both been invited to the Irish estate of children’s mystery writer Athie Playford. That night at dinner, Athie reveals that she has changed her will to disinherit her children and, instead, leave everything to her terminally ill secretary, Joseph Scotcher. In the aftermath of this announcement, Scotcher is found beaten to death and a witness points to Athie’s daughter Claudia as the murderer. But Claudia didn’t have time to get from the scene of the crime, to her room, change, and back down to where everyone is discovering the crime in the time allotted. So, who killed Joseph Scotcher and why?
This is a truly closed circuit mystery. There are 14 people in the house when Scotcher is murdered, so it must be one of them. I prefer this style of mystery because it eliminates the possibility of a heretofore unmentioned person being the murderer. And yet, although the suspects are limited, I still didn’t figure out the solution.
Book Riot recently published an article about whether a mystery should be solveable (link here). And while I mostly agree with the author, I have always preferred mysteries that I was able to solve. Not right away or too easily, of course. But as the book is reaching its climax, I like to have a good guess, at least. And these Poirot books don’t lend themselves to that, at least to me. They require too much information that isn’t given in the text itself. Of course, as this book itself points out, the reader could, if they were so inclined, put the book down to do the outside research themselves that would aid in solving the mystery. I was not so inclined.
All that being said, I have to give this book 4/5 stars. I enjoyed the cast of characters and the change of setting. The story was well written and an enjoyable ride.
