Dead Man’s Folly: Book Review

Today, we will be reviewing Dead Man’s Folly by Agatha Christie, the 35^th book in the Hercule Poirot series. Keep reading to find out what we thought of this novel and if you should read it too!

Dead Man’s Folly Summary

Hercule Poirot is invited by writer Ariadne Oliver to the Nasse House in Devon to help her. She is planning to stage a fake death for the summer fete. But she thinks that someone is planning to commit a real murder.

Poirot meets the people staying at the Nasse House and tries to get to know them. The next day, during the event, Poirot and Oliver come across the dead body of Marlene Tucker in the boathouse. She was supposed to pretend to be murdered but is in fact dead. And Hattie Stubbs, wife of Sir George Stubbs cannot be found.

Adding to the mystery is the arrival of Hattie Stubbs cousin Etienne de Sousa, who she hasn’t seen since she was 16. He is considered the prime suspect because of his connection to Hattie and because Hattie said that “he kills people” the day before.

The novel follows the police interviewing people and gathering clues as well as Poirot’s investigation. You get to see both of them working their own theories and while they do exchange information, Poirot must use his wits if he wants to catch the killer. 

Commentary

Dead Man’s Folly was released in 1956 and features both Hercule Poirot and Hercule Ariadne Oliver, who are recurring characters. 

The mystery that Christie writes in this novel is clever and she makes it impossible to guess the murderer as always. However, she does use some of her old formulas and you can guess some of the twists but putting together the whole picture is much harder.

Poirot doesn’t get as much time in this novel as he usually does and that may be due to Christie widening the scope of characters. We do see Poirot putting it all together and that’s more because he was at the right places at the right time. 

This is the third appearance of Ariadne Oliver and she does play a crucial role in the novel. However, she doesn’t have much depth in this book and you’ll forget she’s in this book by the second half.

I enjoyed the overall theme of the fake murder and Christie comes out and says that someone will be murdered in the first few pages. That helps the reader look for clues but there is a lot of misdirection and following the right tracks is rather difficult. 

Once the murder happens, the novel does pick up and you won’t stop reading until you find out who the murderer is. What I love about Christie’s writing is that she can change her style and yet contains certain elements that define her books.

Conclusion

Dead Man’s Folly didn’t get the best reception from critics and I can see why. She has written so many amazing novels that this one can’t hold a candle to them. But it is still a great read and one I would recommend if you are an Agatha Christie fan. Happy reading!

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