Elephants Can Remember

Paperback, 160 pages

Published Jan. 1, 1981 by Fontana.

(1 review)

E-book exclusive extras:1) Christie biographer Charles Osborne's essay on Elephants Can Remember;2) "The Poirots": the complete guide to all the cases of the great Belgian detective."The Ravenscrofts didn’t seem that kind of person. They seemed well balanced and placid…" And yet, twelve years earlier, the husband had shot the wife, and then himself — or perhaps it was the other way around, since sets of both of their fingerprints were on the gun, and the gun had fallen between them. The case haunts Ariadne Oliver, who had been a friend of the couple. The famous mystery novelist desires this real-life mystery solved, and calls upon Hercule Poirot to help her do so. Poirot is now a very old man, but his mind is as nimble and as sharp as ever and can still penetrate deep into the shadows. But as Poirot and Mrs Oliver and Superintendent Spence reopen the long-closed …

E-book exclusive extras:1) Christie biographer Charles Osborne's essay on Elephants Can Remember;2) "The Poirots": the complete guide to all the cases of the great Belgian detective."The Ravenscrofts didn’t seem that kind of person. They seemed well balanced and placid…" And yet, twelve years earlier, the husband had shot the wife, and then himself — or perhaps it was the other way around, since sets of both of their fingerprints were on the gun, and the gun had fallen between them. The case haunts Ariadne Oliver, who had been a friend of the couple. The famous mystery novelist desires this real-life mystery solved, and calls upon Hercule Poirot to help her do so. Poirot is now a very old man, but his mind is as nimble and as sharp as ever and can still penetrate deep into the shadows. But as Poirot and Mrs Oliver and Superintendent Spence reopen the long-closed case, a startling discovery awaits them. And if memory serves Poirot (and it does!), crime — like history — has a tendency to repeat itself.

47 editions

urbaer reviewed Elephants Can Remember by Agatha Christie

A Poirot that is too late

2 stars

This is my second read of this one and I had the loose concept of how the murder was done and the key points still in my head from last time I read it.

While it's great to see Adriana Oliver and essentially get some insight into how Agatha herself felt about her work near the end of her life, the writing here isn't as vibrant as her earlier work. What Elephants Can Remember appears to be is taking some of her notes on a story that she was working on and padding it out into a novel by having the various people monologue at either Poirot or Oliver (or each other).

I think even without having read it before, it's very likely that you'll get the jist of the murder about half way through. It's a shame that it's such a poorly written novel as the murder could have …

This is my second read of this one and I had the loose concept of how the murder was done and the key points still in my head from last time I read it.

While it's great to see Adriana Oliver and essentially get some insight into how Agatha herself felt about her work near the end of her life, the writing here isn't as vibrant as her earlier work. What Elephants Can Remember appears to be is taking some of her notes on a story that she was working on and padding it out into a novel by having the various people monologue at either Poirot or Oliver (or each other).

I think even without having read it before, it's very likely that you'll get the jist of the murder about half way through. It's a shame that it's such a poorly written novel as the murder could have been quite clever if she had have gotten to it earlier. As it is though, it's a bit of a miss.