Review by Nick Fuller
5/5
Christie's last classic performance, playing (as she did in the 1930s) on the genre's conventions. Here, a wealthy old man is cremated without any suspicion of foul play arising until his sister demands 'He was murdered, wasn't he?' Whereupon she is battered to death. The family lawyer calls in Poirot, who appears late, but functions very effectively. Clueing top-notch standard job, including two brilliant devices (the mirror and the wax flowers) dangled lovingly (yet tantalisingly out of reach) before the reader's very nose. Murderer's identity as brilliant as the plot used to camouflage the murder, and, as a character, ranks with the villains of Lord Edgware Dies and Five Little Pigs.