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Peril at End House: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition
Peril at End House: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition
Peril at End House: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition
Audiobook5 hours

Peril at End House: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition

Written by Agatha Christie

Narrated by Hugh Fraser

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

In the Agatha Christie classic Peril at End House, a young woman who has recently survived a series of very close calls appears to be the target of a dedicated killer—and it’s up to Hercule Poirot to save her life.

On holiday on the Cornish Riviera, Hercule Poirot is alarmed to hear pretty Nick Buckley describe her recent “accidental brushes with death.” First, on a treacherous Cornish hillside, the brakes on her car failed. Then, on a coastal path, a falling boulder missed her by inches. Later, an oil painting fell and almost crushed her in bed.

So when Poirot finds a bullet hole in Nick’s sun hat, he decides that this girl needs his help. Can he find the would-be killer before he hits his target?

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperAudio
Release dateJul 3, 2012
ISBN9780062231680
Author

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She died in 1976, after a prolific career spanning six decades.

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Reviews for Peril at End House

Rating: 3.897899200840336 out of 5 stars
4/5

1,190 ratings40 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The trouble with re-reading these after a period of decades is that I am never sure if I am cleverly working out bits of the solution or just remembering them.This was ingenious, and I enjoyed the Poirot/Hastings dynamic, but none of the other characters really appealed.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Just a typical classic Christie. Not a home run but solid.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was a very interesting and complex mystery for sure and the reveal at the end was so well done. I never would have guessed all the twist that went into the final reveal.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Christie, as always, genius. Hercule Poirot is such a fun and complete character.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    A far far fetched plot, and even further fetched is Poirot’s solution.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Amazing book by the queen of cozy mysteries herself. A really great read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    If there’s a strong novel for a Poirot newbie, "Peril at End House" may be it. It’s not Christie’s best, or Poirot’s – indeed, my own rankings would seem to indicate it’s at about the midpoint for both of them – but this book features Poirot as both a cunning investigator and a human, featuring a rare case in which he becomes heavily invested. Along with Hastings, Japp, and some well-drawn secondary characters, "Peril" is a great novel to recommend to someone intrigued by Christie: all of her best elements, yet there are so many even better things to come.

    Although the suspects are deftly drawn, Christie gives over so much time to their interactions (necessary, I think, for the denouement) that it occasionally feels like a drama novel, not a mystery. (Although the same could be said of the splendid "The Hollow".) This is one of Christie’s best misdirections, with even Poirot fooled. If you figure this one out, you’re a genius.

    Three-and-a-half stars.

    Poirot ranking: 17th out of 38
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Trust Hercule Poirot to see that if someone lies some of the time, they're probably lying all the time. Poirot's holiday gets interesting when murder presents itself. And of course he's never really on holiday so don't mess with him.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The last audiobook from our travels earlier in the month. We ended up finishing this one over dinner in the living room since we were enjoying it so much and didn't quite get to the end in the car. As always, Fraser is an absolute delight. This is one of my favorite Poirots that I've read/listened to (as opposed to the ones I've only watched the TV adaptations). The characters are all really interesting, and there's so much more going on than you think. Excellently done.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    it you can stay even with Hercule Poirot during this little fable then, hmmm, ah what was next here I think I remember that's what all of them [a, b, c, d, e, s, t, la, n, d, s, o, o, n]
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Twice I thought I had this one solved, but I was wrong on both accounts and by a wide margin. The characters in this mystery are lively and made for an unusual tale. It is my favorite Poirot to date.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Peril at End House shows a naïve Hercule Poirot that falls under the spells of Magdala “Nick” Buckley. Each chapter displays a foolish man that believes everything a young, beautiful woman tells him. Poirot does not allow the little gray cells to invade this case until the final chapters. Nick enlists Poirot to guard against multiple plots of killing her. But why would anyone want to kill Nick, she has no money? Then a glimmer appears when Nick tells of her engagement to Michael Seton, a world class flyer. Michael is lost in his attempted flight, and many think Nick will inherit his estate. The plots of murder continue, but instead of killing Nick, her cousin Maggie is killed. Why? What is Poirot doing to protect Nick and solve this mystery? I would love to talk with Agatha Christie and ask her many questions: where does she find all these strange names for her characters and how does she establish the steps of the killer? This story presents an interesting tale but shows the weakness of Poirot.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A fine Hercule Poirot novel, with the story being narrated by Hastings. Even though this is the 8th novel (with many more to come), the career of Poirot is portrayed to be at the twilight, which I thought was interesting.

    I found the story to be engaging, but most of the characters were not fully developed in my opinion. I didn't have much empathy for the cast, except for Poirot and Hastings, but they are developed in all the books.

    Nevertheless, the mystery is satisfying to follow and sleuth out.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is not the very best Poirot novel there is, but definitely one I enjoyed more than some others. I liked the setting very much - a hotel and an old country house in Cornwall - on the one hand because it's such a classic setting, and on the other hand because right now, what could be better than a seaside holiday in a place as beautiful as Cornwall.The story intrigued me from the beginning and although I guessed a few parts of the solution, I did not guess the culprit. I feel like the characters are a little flat in this one, and Poirot was boasting about himself a little too much, but the story and the case captivated me and it was just the kind of comfort read I was looking for.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Hercule involves himself when a light-hearted young woman discounts the possibility that there have been a number of murder attempts on her.Typical Christie mystery set in a country house in Cornwall, and as usual Poirot collects together all the characters involved at a final meeting and dramatic reveal.4* because I couldn’t guess the ‘why done it’.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The sparkle of Dame Agatha's writing and the verve of her plotting in her absolute peak years, the 1930s, is a sheer joy to read. Poirot and Hastings, on their way to Cornwall's fleshpots, meet Miss Nick Buckley. She is a lovely local landowner, a bit short of the ready (to borrow Sir Plum's locution for Bertie Wooster) but possessed of a glorious ramshackle seaside house. She inveigles Poirot and Hastings into her world to help her deal with mysterious attempts on her life. Since she has no money, no prospects of getting any, and a mortgaged house, who's trying to kill her and why?The plot hinges on a shared family name, a unique coincidence that could not be foreseen, and a cold and calculating soul looking out for Number One. Nothing is quite as simple as the surface suggests; the threads of the subplots do gum up the works a bit; but in the end, there is a happy resolution and ma'at is maintained. No one profits from their crimes. No one suffers injustice. There is a single example of the Old Boy's Network in action, and that wasn't quite so nice. But it's the chain of coincidence that bugs me the most. It's clearly intentional, and I suppose you could argue that the coincidences are seized upon by the ruthless killer as a further example of astute quick thinking in service of one's own survival. Maybe a bit like The Usual Suspects with Our Kind of People.Still. Not quite the top drawer, Dame Agatha.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Nice, relatively early Poirot. Hastings, back from the Argentine, and Poirot are on holidays in the south of England and celebrating Poirot's retirement. After turning down an urgent plea for assistance from the Home Secretary Poirot is drawn into the mystery of the attempts on the life of a reckless, poor, upper class young woman. This is more the Jeeves-ish end of the Christie oeuvre, with rather stereotyped characterisation but it's an enjoyable quick read. (I picked this up after a picture fell from the wall onto a family member's bed and my sister said "that's what happened in Peril at End House! - life imitated art!).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I thoroughly enjoyed Peril At End House by Agatha Christie. This story features Hercule Poirot and his long suffering friend, Hastings, as they get involved with a young woman whose life has been threatened on numerous occasions. Things take a serious turn when, in a case of mistaken identity, the young lady’s cousin is shot dead. Poirot in his egotistic, bombastic manner puts all the pieces together and solves the mystery.What struck me as most interesting is the reference Hastings makes to a failed case of Poirot’s. A case involving a box of chocolates. In fact, whenever Hastings wants to warn Poirot that he is getting too high-handed, he just has to say the words “Chocolate Box” to draw him in. I wonder if this is Christie’s tongue-in-cheek reference to Anthony Berkeley’s book, The Case of the Poisoned Chocolates, which was published just two years before Peril at End House. While Peril At End House isn’t the finest of Christie’s mysteries, it was an entertaining read. Technically this was a re-read as I had originally enjoyed the book in the 1970’s but I literally had no memory of the story. I enjoyed revisiting her fussy, little detective and the rest of the inventive characters she has peopled this book with and I freely admit that she totally baffled me again.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    3.5/5 stars

    While on holiday famous detective, Hercule Poirot, meets a young woman whose life has been in danger and has escaped death on several different occasions, including directly in front of Poirot. Wanting to protect this girl from a fatal event, Poirot examines the evidence and psychology in order to solve the case.

    Mystery novels are not my go-to for reading. However, Agatha Christie's writing is interesting and keeps the reader's attention. I definitely did not expect that ending, which to me is the sign of a great mystery. I liked this novel a bit less because it was slower in the beginning and didn't grab me as fast as other Christie novels.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This was another Poirot book that I don't recall having read before. (I've read some of Christie's titles many times, while others are a first as I make my way through her entire list from start to finish.) In this one, Poirot and Hastings befriend a woman who has had several attempts made on her life in recent days, and yet another attempt is made in the presence of our two pals, who are vacationing along the English Channel coast. It didn't take me long to figure out what was going on, and when the key action sequence transpired, it was very obvious to me what was taking place. I did miss out on a few minor things involving a couple of B-plots, but, as is often the case, it was because Christie didn't offer up the needed information until she did so in retrospect. Still, it was a fun read in the typical Christie fashion, and a solid outing for Hercule and his little grey cells.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Peril at End House was a great mystery to follow. It did not pretended to be anything than a straight forward murder mystery. There was hardly any social commentary - and none of which I remember to be dubious (well, not as dubious as some of Dame Agatha's other ones), and I did not guess the murderer until the very end. It also had some of the delightful conversations where Poirot pokes fun at Hastings - either about his understanding of women or his admiration for the capabilities of English sportsmen:

    "Still no news of that flying fellow, Seton, in his round-the-world flight. Pretty plucky, these fellows. That amphibian machine of his, the Albatross, must be a great invention. Too bad if he's gone west. Not that they've given up hope yet. He may have made one of the Pacific Islands."
    "The Solomon islanders are still cannibals, are they not?" inquired Poirot pleasantly.
    "Must be a fine fellow. That sort of thing makes one feel it's a good thing to be an Englishman after all."
    "It consoles for the defeats at Wimbledon," said Poirot.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The seventh novel-length adventure of Hercule Poirot finds him and Hastings in Cornwall, in the unusual position of trying to prevent a murder rather than solve one that's already been committed. This one features loads of suspects and Poirot is forced to eat an unusual amount of humble pie, though of course he spits it all back up in the end like the sleek, self-satisfied cat he really is. As usual with Dame Christie, I gleaned bits and pieces of the eventual dénouement as the story progressed but there enough surprises left in the end to make it enjoyable.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Christie was feeling so comfortable with her detectives' fame that she indulged in quite a bit of quiet humour at their expense, as well as poking fun at mystery-stories in general.The other characters were "stock" although the references to the between-wars upper-class drug-culture lent some piquancy to the narrative (Sayers referenced the same milieu in one of her Wimsey novels).The clues were fairly laid, but ultimately too implausible for believability. Without revealing the perpetrator, I want to point out that,at the time, the psychology of a sociopath might not have been bandied about by the population as it is today, but the personality-character traits were plainly known to Christie (and others) .SPOILER FOLLOWS The idea that a 20-something young English gel could outsmart Poirot might have been fun for Christie to write, but it is rationally impossible for Nick to have carried out the complex scheme, and unlikely she would have even thought out how to do it. The name gimmick was good, although I actually twigged to that one almost as soon as Poirot did.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5


    What a way to begin the year.... with a loser!

    M. Poirot & Hastings are on holiday, staying at a beach side hotel..... Enter a young woman, Nick, who has been shot at and has had a few other near attempts on her life in the past 3 days....

    M. Poirot takes these attempts very seriously, but Nick merely laughs them off. M. Poirot not one to allow murder to pass undetected assigns himself to Nick & her house party, so that he might protect her.

    During the fireworks, both Nick & her cousin go back in the house for their coats. The cousin is found shot to death wearing Nick's the shawl, proof that Nick is in danger.

    I didn't like this book, I didn't like the characters...... I also didn't like the constant barrage of forced dialog between Poirot & Hastings. Hastings was his usual inept self, and Poirot was all conjecture, exclamations, & prattle.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Hercule Poirot mystery # 8 has the “retired” detective on holiday with his friend Hastings at the Cornish seaside town of St. Loo. A mystery lands in their laps when a young heiress, the current owner of the once magnificent End House, admits that she’s had several near misses in the last few days. Nick Buckley can’t imagine why anyone would try to kill her, but Poirot insists she is in grave danger, and, indeed, there are several more attempts. Unfortunately her cousin is shot instead when she’s mistaken for Nick while wearing Nick’s Chinese shawl.

    This is a fine example of the kinds of puzzling cases Christie is so good at crafting. We have a large cast of interesting characters – a sullen housemaid, a sweet ingénue, a suspicious Australian couple, a best friend (who’s married to a drunk), an aviator who has gone missing during an around-the-world mission, an art dealer, and a penniless former Navy commander. There are considerable plot twists, and just when you are sure you have it figured out, Christie throws another curve at you.

    On the whole an entertaining summer read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A blithe and snappy Christie in a classic configuration: Poirot and Hastings take a holiday on the Cornish coast and become involved with a young socialite, Mademoiselle "Nick," who has survived multiple murder attempts. Poirot takes it upon himself to protect her from further misfortune but (somewhat uncharacteristically) fails to be vigilant during a loud fireworks display, allowing someone else to be shot in the young woman's place. With the killer still at large and frustrated by his mistake, Poirot focuses his efforts to keep Nick from an untimely end that could come from any corner.This is Christie by the numbers, at a point in her career (1932) when she could really first be said to have patterns and tropes emerging in her work. It's probably around this point that Christie starts considering phasing Captain Hastings out - he'll be gone from the novels in another five years - and Japp is already relegated to little more than an extended cameo. Still, this is very much the Poirot of the popular perception, fussy and a bit exaggerated, without the "Papa Poirot" speeches or tangents into Catholicism that occasionally show up in the earlier books. As such, Peril at End House is probably a strong candidate for the first "regular" Poirot novel - even coming, as it does, seventh in the series, and well after the runaway success of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It's a strong formula, and if it seems a little familiar in retrospect, that doesn't stop it being entertaining. The book practically glides along: it's incredibly "readable." Christie will stick to the same basic framework and tone for the Poirot mysteries for almost another decade, an unusually prolific period in her career; there are no less than fourteen Poirot novels between this one and Five Little Pigs in 1942, with several of them regarded as classics. It's only after the war - and Christie's own fears of being killed in the Blitz, which led to the writing and ferreting away of Curtain - that the stories start to take a far darker turn. This is, effectively, the Poirot everyone remembers, and the Poirot everyone wants to revisit. It's like your favorite childhood candy: nothing terribly substantial but full of nostalgia and pleasant memories. There are far worse ways to spend a couple of afternoons poolside than with Hercule Poirot, his friend Hastings, and the mysterious goings-on at End House.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Another good entry in the Poirot series by la Christie. I found this a remarkable one, since for the first time I figured out who committed the murder before Poirot did himself (at least, in the story). :-)

    It strikes me however how very much her storylines rely on the particularities of society so typical to the era they are written in. The position of women, the reliability of promises, the pose one needs to hold in public, etc... To me, this adds an interesting layer into Christie's books as it kind of allows me to immerse myself into the world my grandparents grew up in.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Poirot is on holiday in Cornwall, he is talking to Captain Hastings and then he meets Nick Buckley who tells of her close situations with death, and Poirot thinks someone is trying to kill her. Nick treats it all as a joke but Poirot is convinced that she is in danger,so he founds that it is true, when Nick lends her shawl to her cousin Maggie. She is shot when she is wearing Nick´s shawl.He then starts to find clues, to investigate people, just for helping Nick.Unknown words:Shawl: a piece of wool or other material worn, especially by women, about the shoulders, or the head and shoulders, in place of a coat or hat outdoorsHilt:the handle of a sword or dagger.Baffle:to frustrate or confoundDictum:an authoritative pronouncement; judicial assertion.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Really enjoyed that, the end is astonishing. One of the better Poirot novels, methinks. The plot is easy and yet the solution takes some guts.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    So, after 4 books which gleaned 5 stars, this dud arrives. This book doesn't really deserves 2 stars but I had to judge it as a re read. The solution would have been breathtaking. But I remember only too well the outcome. I only read it because I didn't remember the title of Peril at End House. The book does not hold well as it's not a cozy mystery. There's no coziness, no nastiness, no sadness, no doom, no (in my opinion) romance even. It's a big nothing.It's just one of those attempts of bending the rules of mystery writing. A coup that Agatha Christie pulls off but with little aplomb. The red herrings are too unlikely and ponderous. St Loo, the location, seems like a nest of crime. Too much not interesting stuff happens in too few days. I don't care for this book's characters, and therefore I don't care for the book itself. Poirot was very bland in it. He cannot be interesting by himself, however clever his deductions are. He's not even that eccentric. Hastings was a waste of space. I don't like that duo much. Poirot is a necessity for explaining, other than that he doesn't contribute a lot to the atmosphere. I will remind myself never to read this paltry offering again. I hope there's not too many Agatha Christie books like that.That should have been the end of my review, but for those who haven't read this book, I request you to at least read the first few pages and if you like the style and the setting, do go for it. You may extract from it more than I could. After all, this book might be even a darling of the critics, a classic that I'm dissing. A good review lets the reader be the judge. I rest my case.