Agatha Christie, a world-renowned master of detective novels, "Nile Massacre", "Murder on the Orient Express", "No One Survives", "ABC Murder" and other speculative novels are popular, and the small Belgian detective "Hercule Poirot" portrayed by pen has become one of the world's classic detectives.
Agatha is the founder of the detective novel "Country House Pie", where the homicide takes place in a particular closed environment, and the murderer is also one or more of several specific related people.
If you are new to Agatha's detective novels and don't know which one to start reading, I recommend "The Strange Case of Cliff Hills".
This is a novel of Agatha's standard routine, a typical "country house pie" creative mode, with a strong story, fast pace, plot peak circuit, and surprise at the end of the reading.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > "The Strange Case of Cliff Hill"</h1>
The origin of the story: the hostess of the mountain who escaped four consecutive murders
Detective Poirot and his friend Hastings meet Miss Nick Buckley, the owner of Cliff Hill.
Miss Nick of the Lotte Pie said she had survived three times in the past three days. First the brakes of the car failed; then she was almost hit by a rock on the road; and she was almost hit by a falling painting while she was asleep.
After discovering that there is a bullet hole in Nick's visor and that the pistol in Nick's home happens to be stolen, Detective Poirot decides to protect the innocent girl.
The story begins straight into the main line, the hostess of cliff hill, Nick, is grinning and optimistic and frank, and actually rubbed shoulders with the god of death four times in a row, and the fast-paced exciting plot easily attracts readers into the story atmosphere, following Detective Poirot on a tense and dangerous journey.
Murder: Nick's cousin Maggie is killed by mistake!
At Poirot's request, in order to protect himself, Nick recruited his distant cousin Maggie as a companion. In the evening, a fireworks banquet was held at Cliff Hill, which was attended by many of Nick's friends.
Unexpectedly, the murder happened that night - the cousin wearing Nick's red shawl was shot and killed by the murderer as Nick.
In this passage, the author slowly sorts out Nick's social relationships, and the characters related to the case, such as the housekeeper of the cliff house, the tenant couple of the cottage in front of the villa, the Navy Lieutenant Colonel Chalinger who is pursuing Nick, Nick's lawyer cousin, and his friend Rice, all appear.
The death of cousin Maggie triggers the first small climax of the story, and under Poirot's obvious protection against Nick, the murderer blatantly kills! In the face of such a provocation, how should Poirot find out the real culprit next?
Motivation arises: inheritance of large amounts of property
Overburdened, Nick was sent to a nursing home. The next day she told Poirot that she had a fiancé, Michael Seton, the pilot who was killed on the radio. She and Michael are secretly engaged. He had a large estate, and the property was inherited by his fiancée after his death in a will.
Nick reveals the engagement secret to Poirot
Nick once made a will before an operation, and the beneficiary of the will was his lawyer cousin, who could only inherit cliff hills, while her good friend Miss Rice could inherit the rest of the property except the villa. The investigation revealed that Rice was a drug addict.
Rice was questioned
Nick commissioned his tenant couple to send the will to his cousin, but the cousin said he had not received it, but the tenant couple insisted that the will had been sent six months earlier.
Poirot and his assistant Hastings go to Nick's room to search and find a letter from her fiancé to Nick.
In the letter, Michael said that the heir to his estate was his fiancée, and that Magdaleer was the great name of Nick Buckley.
Poirot found the epistles
The case enters the investigation stage, Poirot around Nick's interpersonal relationship, in turn asked the relevant people on the night of the crime, according to the motive of the crime - who will be the beneficiary after Nick's death, as well as the alibi at the time of the crime and other relevant clues, in turn listed all the suspect options, believing that Rice has a big suspicion.
This is actually a multiple choice question that the author gives the reader through the perspective of a detective. The clues have been rolled out, the suspect selection has been listed, it depends on how you use the exclusion method to eliminate the wrong options and select the murderer.
Crisis Regeneration: Chocolate Poisoning
Poirot, who was outside investigating, received news that Nick had been poisoned. Someone wrote a promo card in Poirot's handwriting and gave Nick a box of poisoned chocolates.
Nick thought that the food sent by Poirot should be no problem, so he ate chocolate, fortunately, the rescue was not life-threatening in time.
Promo card included with chocolate
After investigation, the chocolate was given to him by Nick's friend Rice. Rice says that Nick called to get him a box of chocolates, but Pollo's questioning, Rice wasn't sure if it was really Nick's voice on the other end of the phone.
The chocolate poisoning trick is too clumsy, and it looks like it is deliberately leading the suspect to Rice, which reduces the possibility that Rice is the murderer.
During the investigation, the charming conversation of his friend Hastings seemed to make Poirot step on the electric door, and the inspiration in his brain suddenly appeared, and all the clues were integrated, and Poirot finally deduced who was the real culprit...
The killer moves again, seemingly with a strong determination to kill Nick. Speculative fiction often needs to be branched out to advance the plot. The chocolate poisoning incident made the case even more confusing, and the identity of the real murderer was blurred.
In detective fiction, whenever a case reaches an impasse, a tool character like Hastings is needed to provide inspiration for the protagonist to solve the case. If you are familiar with the Agatha routine, combined with the key hint of the nickname, I believe that some readers have already deduced who the murderer is...
The good drama begins: the girl fakes her death and leads the suspect into the game
Poirot decided to take the matter into account and released the news that Nick had been poisoned and killed. At this time, the lawyer's cousin received the will that Nick had made half a year ago.
Poirot gathered the relevant people together and read out the contents of the will by his cousin, but he did not expect that the beneficiaries of the will were actually the tenant couple, not the cousin and Rice that Nick had said earlier.
The tenant couple was caught forging wills
Nick appears like a ghost according to Poirot's arrangement and denounces the tenant couple, which also confirms the tenant couple's crime of forging wills.
Unexpectedly, there was a gunshot outside the house, a shot hit Rice's arm, and as a result, there was another gunshot outside, and the person who had fallen to the ground was Rice's husband. Rice said that her husband was taking drugs and she followed in her footsteps, she thought that her husband might want to kill herself, but killed someone else by mistake, but she couldn't imagine that her husband would poison Nick, so she had been hiding something.
Nick hopes to let Rice's husband die to end the nightmare and not pursue it, but Poirot decides to reveal the final truth.
At this point in the case, all the characters appeared, and the doubts of some suspects who had been implicated in the case were also resolved, such as the falsified will of the tenant couple and Rice's addicted husband. Excluding the interference events on the branch line, then back to the main line, who killed Maggie and who wanted to kill Nick? Then came the highlight moment of the detective...
The ending is reversed: the protected "lamb" is the "big bad wolf" who kills people
The Inspector finally came on the scene, and he followed Poirot's entrustment and hid in the shadows to observe everyone's actions while reading out his will. The Inspector sees Nick take out the pistol hidden in the alcove and put it in the pocket of Rice's coat hanging in the hall, which is obviously a booty.
Poirot reveals the truth
Poirot exposes Nick as the real culprit behind the whole case, and uses the loophole of the same name to inherit the legacy that Michael Seton left to Maggie! Maggie's big name is also Magdale Buckley, and Michael's real engagement is her, not Nick!
Nick's shrewdness is to create the illusion of being in danger for herself, pulling Detective Poirot, a very heavy witness, to her side, but this is also her fatal mistake, and once Poirot finds a flaw in the investigation, he will quietly fight back!
In the end, the truth of the ending was revealed, and the specific details of Poirot's reasoning were not spoiled by the author, and interested friends could go to see it.
"Cliff Hill Strange Case" is a cool to read speculative fiction, suitable for the first time to see Agatha Christie's speculative fiction entry-level works.
Fragmented fragmented clues, confusing important tips, overly abnormal events, readers can follow the detective to solve the case, there is no case like the TV series or animation in the face of the audience's key clues will only flash, the clues buried in this book and the smoke bombs thrown by the author are beautiful.
The moment you know the truth, and then think about the previous details, especially the behavior of the heroine Nick, you will suddenly realize, think about it, and can only sigh that this woman is too green tea.