Black Coffee
by
Agatha Christie & Charles Osborne

Read by

Alexandra Thomas

Soundelux Audio Publishing, 1998, 6 hours

4 cassettes, ISBN: 1-55935-281-7

Genre: Detective/Mystery
Reviewed: 2/19/2001

Reviewed by: Conan Tigard

Book Cover

Excerpt

The sound of a key turning in the lock could be heard.

"Claud," Miss Amory exclaimed, "what on Earth does Treadwell think..."

"Treadwell is acting upon my instructions, Caroline," Claud interrupted sharply.

Richard Amory addressed his father, "May we ask the meaning of all this?" he inquired coldly.

"I'm about to explain," replied Sir Claud. "Listen to me calmly, all of you. To begin with, as you now realize, those two doors," he gestured towards the two doors on the hall side of the library, "are locked on the outside. From my study next door there is no wait out except through this room. The French windows in this room are locked."

Swiveling around in his seat to Carelli, he explained as though in parenthesis, "Locked, in fact, by a patent device of my own, which my family knows of, but which they do not know how to immobilize."

Again addressing everyone, Sir Claud continued, "This place is a rat trap."

He looked at his watch. "It is now ten minutes to nine. At a few minutes past nine, the rat catcher will arrive."

"The rat catcher?" Richard Amory's face was a study in perplexity. "What rat catcher?"

"A detective," explained the famous scientist dryly as he sipped his coffee.

Synopsis

In the spring of 1934, Hercule Poirot is summoned to Surrey by England's most prominent physicist, Sir Claud Amory. It seems that Claud fears that someone in his family is going to steal the formula he has just completed...a formula for creating a bomb that will cause mass devastation. Upon arriving, Poirot and Captain Hastings discover that the formula is missing and Sir Claud sits dead in his chair.

Poirot is asked by stay and solve the mystery of Sir Claud's death by his daughter-in-law. As Poirot investigates, he finds himself discovering that Sir Claud was indeed murdered, a blackmailer in the house, and the thief of the formula. No one is above suspicion, and the murderer is still in the house. Is the murderer one of the family, one of the servants, or possibly the mysterious Italian doctor that appeared that day? Only Hercule Poirot knows the answer...

This is an audio version of the book Black Coffee by Agatha Christie. This story was originally written by Agatha Christie in 1930 as a three-act play. This play was adapted as a novel by Charles Osborne who not only played the doctor on stage in this play, but is an expert on Christie's life and work as well as a world-renowned theater and opera critic.

The story is read by Alexandra Thomas. This audio book is in cassette format, consisting of 4 cassettes, each about 1½ hours, and plays for a total of 6 hours. This is an unabridged version of the novel. This story a mystery starring Hercule Poirot, the petite Belgian detective, in his final story.

Review

I am a big Agatha Christie fan. She was the first mystery writer I read. Her plots are usually so intricate that I never figure out who the bad person is until that person is revealed by the detective or sleuth. I picked up this audio book at the local library to listen to on a long drive into the mountains. I didn't pay much attention to the cover, so I didn't know that this was originally a play and had been later adapted into book format by Charles Osborne. I didn't matter.

I enjoyed that characters and plot and it was hard to figure out who did the deed. A mystery book isn't any fun if you figure out who did it too early in the story. I don't know who Alexandra Thomas is, but I thoroughly enjoyed her rendition of this story. Her English accent lends and air of quality to the story-telling that really brings the characters to life in the English setting. She uses accents for the "foreigners" so it was easy to tell who was speaking.

So, if you are looking for 6 hours to kill on a drive, or just sitting around doing nothing in particular, pick up this audio book of Black Coffee and try to figure out who killed Sir Claud. Bet you can't beat Poirot to the punch.