SuperHeroBooks - One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (Hercule Poirot)
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List Price: $6.99
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Manufacturer: Berkley
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823
EAN: 9780425105702
ISBN: 0425105709
Label: Berkley
Manufacturer: Berkley
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: 1987-04-15
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: 2004-03-02
Studio: Berkley
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: One, Two Buckle My Shoe
Comment: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (Hercule Poirot)
This book is a thoroughly enjoyable read with elements that still resonate today. Hercule Poirot is in rare form as he makes a dreaded trip to the dentist and finds himself involved in more than he bargained for. In typical Poirot fashion he is soon hot on the trail of insurrectionists, murder most foul with a plot to overthrow the British government thrown in for good measure. Poirot's ability to appreciate how his peculiar foibles make him the object of scorn by some members of a household in the countryside he visits during his investigation make this Christi novel different from others where Poirot seems to take himself much too seriously.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Common Denominator Is a London Dentist's Office
Comment: Among the subtlest and "deepest" of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot stories, ONE, TWO, BUCKLE MY SHOE is a murder mystery that comments on the British class system. That the story is essentially about class is clear from the widely differing social stations of its cast of characters. Take, for example, the three victims: first, a respected dentist named Mr. Morley is found shot to death in his office; then one of Morley's patients, a wealthy Greek immigrant, dies while another patient, a nondescript charity worker with the "pompous" name of Mabelle Sainsbury Seale, vanishes. Hercule Poirot and Chief Inspector Japp must find the common link between these three occurrences. The matter is complicated further by the fact that Alistair Blunt, a financier who gained his status by marrying into an Anglo-Jewish banking family (one obviously based on the Rothschilds) was also a patient in Morley's office on the day of his death; Japp believes that Blunt himself was intended to be the victim. But for the ever-observant Poirot, the case really begins with something quite mundane: that is, a shoe...a woman's black patent leather shoe with a large, ornate buckle...
Also highly recommended, for those who have finished the novel: the superb made-for-TV version of ONE, TWO, BUCKLE MY SHOE, starring David Suchet as Poirot and Philip Jackson as Japp, and available on DVD from Amazon.com.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Interesting Set-Up
Comment: One Two Buckle My Shoe is one of the more contrived of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novels but its twisted loops are definately part of the fun. The author does play around with politics in her conservative, often very naive, way but handles it much more smoothly than she did in her early twenties spy novels. The solution to the killer is both predicatable and satisfying as Christie crawls right up to the preposterous and then pulls back just a little. This is one of the Poirot novels that could have used Hastings a foil and his prescence is sadly missed, particularly as everyone at a certain dentist's office on a particular morning has something to hide and it would have been fun to read Hastings switching prime suspects with each new revelation. All in all, not a classic Christie but an interesting one.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Along the same lines as Hitchcock's "Notorious"
Comment: ONE, TWO, BUCKLE MY SHOE has not, I think, topped anyone's list of favorite Agatha Christies for many years. Re-reading it again after many years, it seems to me to share some similarities to CURTAIN, Poirot's last case. Both of them are sort of bloodless, intellectual thrillers that play with ideas in a modernist way. BUCKLE is all about the cult of the superman, in this case the sacred financier Alistair Blunt, the Bernard Baruch type moneymind whom Britain "needs" and whose wellbeing is necessary to prevent the collapse of the UK economy. The attitude of the police and the secret service is, He may have his peccadilloes, but by Jove we need him in this country. In CURTAIN, which must have been written about the same time, the superman takes a darker turn, he is the man who can inspire others to commit murder for him, by the power of suggestion, but anyone who finishes ONE, TWO, BUCKLE MY SHOE will know why I linked these two books on this one point.
I was surprised and shocked by the ending. Only Poirot could have figured out all the ramifications of the case, as well as to pull out the identity of the killer's accomplice out of thin air. I don't feel that Christie was using "fair play" in this novel, but it is so baffling that I don't even care! I love reading about her tormented, independent young women who cab't stand their own lives and yearn for something better--in this case. Jane Oliveira, the financier's niece. I wonder if elements of this novel didn't find their way into Ben Hecht's screenplay for Hitchcock's film NOTORIOUS. It's all about how you live with yourself when you're doing something wrong if it is for the public good, or if you can persuade yourself that it is while you're committing the crime (or sin, to be moral about it).
BUCKLE, like CURTAIN, is a little vague about--is there a war going on or not? Maybe it is set in an alternate universe in which others are fighting the war so we don't have to talk about it. In today's political climate, that kind of aesthetic amnesia rings a bell. Back then, it was a remarkably daring feat for the always experimental Agatha Christie.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good, but complicated
Comment: The story first started off alright- all the characters were introuduced, and everything sounded interesting.however, the story goes on and on and it became a bit complicated. without paying close attention, one could be easily wandered off somewhere and got lost in the plot. but it isnt a bad one. recommanded to skillful readers / experienced Christie's readers.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Hercule Poirot doesn't believe it when a dentist allegedly commits suicide--especially after drilling the doctor's patients, partners, and friends.
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