The interaction between the characters is superb, but Christie shows how out of touch she is with the world around her, especially the younger generation. The young people read as if they are set in the 1930s, and the disparaging comments about beatnik and The Beatles and young people in general remind me of the problems I have had with others of her later books.
Yup. There's a sentence in the spoiler section that had me going "Exactly." I won't reference it here, but ... I think we all agree this is the major issue with her final books, content-wise and as far as crafting younger characters is concerned.
It really is. I can forgive all of it (EXCEPT for Passenger to Frankfurt, which should be burned) because she's Agatha, because I feel like my concerned grandmother started lecturing me about boys who "only want one thing from a girl." But from a character perspective, they aren't characters, they are caricatures. Some elderly writers retain the knack of writing believable youthful characters into their twilight years. Agatha was not one of them (neither was Georgette Heyer, btw).
I just finished this one, and other than Poirot, Ariadne, and Miss Lemon, I have nothing good to say about the book, and even here some of Poirot's comments are ... borderline.
That sounds both so sad, and so interesting. Stew away.