Oh, this was a good one. And I especially liked how twisted the story was and I never would have guessed that ending.

I really like those Chistie´s were I´m completely in the blind until the very last pages of the book.

Book: Read a book about light, miracles, featuring Jewish characters, set in Israel, that is the second book in a series, with the word “two” in the title, or with a light on the cover.

I´m really enjoying

angle of this story. Somehow the stakes seem to be higher than usual for Poirot.

And I just realized that I can use this book for the 24 tasks as well. Which is amazing.

Book: Read a book about light, miracles, featuring Jewish characters, set in Israel, that is the second book in a series, with the word “two” in the title, or with a light on the cover.

I think I need to update my rating for this book. I enjoyed this slow re-read immensely: Not only is the murder mystery pretty good, there is also a serious, dare I say, thoughtful undertone to it. I'm not sure if Dame Agatha intended this, but it just really works for me. 

And, yet, the book is also riddled with humor and references to other books in the Christie-verse... I laughed so hard at Poirot's pining over the memory of the Countess, and at the mention of "Herzoslovakia", which is a bonkers invention of Christie's from The Secret of Chimneys.

Yes, I really, really like this one a lot.

Aww. This is so cute. Hercule and his countess.

These meditations had occupied Hercule Poirot on his homeward way until reaching Regent’s Park. He decided to traverse a part of the Park before taking a taxi on.

By experience, he knew to a nicety the moment when his smart patent leather shoes began to press painfully on his feet.

It was a lovely summer’s day and Poirot looked indulgently on courting nursemaids and their swains, laughing and giggling while their chubby charges profited by nurse’s inattention. Dogs barked and romped. Little boys sailed boats. And under nearly every tree was a couple sitting close together …

‘Ah! Jeunesse, Jeunesse,’ murmured Hercule Poirot, pleasurably affected by the sight.

They were chic, these little London girls. They wore their tawdry clothes with an air.

Their figures, however, he considered lamentably deficient.

Where were the rich curves, the voluptuous lines that had formerly delighted the eye of an admirer?

He, Hercule Poirot, remembered women … One woman, in particular—what a sumptuous creature—Bird of Paradise—a Venus …

What woman was there amongst these pretty chits nowadays, who could hold a candle to Countess Vera Rossakoff?

I love the political slant in this story, even if it is rather creepy to read right now. This book is probably the closest that Dame Agatha ever came to writing a political thriller. Well, one that is enjoyable to read, anyway...

‘Which was?’

Mr Barnes twinkled more than ever.

‘We’re very tiresome people in this country. We’re conservative, you know, conservative to the backbone. We grumble a lot, but we don’t really want to smash our democratic government and try new-fangled experiments. That’s what’s so heart-breaking to the wretched foreign agitator who’s working full time and over! The whole trouble is—from their point of view—that we really are, as a country, comparatively solvent. Hardly any other country in Europe is at the moment! To upset England—really upset it—you’ve got to play hell with its finance—that’s what it comes to! And you can’t play hell with its finance when you’ve got men like Alistair Blunt at the helm.’

Mr Barnes paused and then went on: ‘Blunt is the kind of man who in private life would always pay his bills and live within his income—whether he’d got twopence a year or several million makes no difference. He is that type of fellow. And he just simply thinks that there’s no reason why a country shouldn’t be the same! No costly experiments. No frenzied expenditure on possible Utopias. That’s why’—he paused—‘that’s why certain people have made up their minds that Blunt must go.’

‘Ah,’ said Poirot. Mr Barnes nodded.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know what I’m talking about. Quite nice people some of ’em. Long-haired, earnest-eyed, and full of ideals of a better world. Others not so nice, rather nasty in fact. Furtive little rats with beards and foreign accents. And another lot again of the Big Bully type. But they’ve all got the same idea: Blunt Must Go!’ He tilted his chair gently back and forward again. ‘Sweep away the old order! The Tories, the Conservatives, the Diehards, the hard-headed suspicious Business Men, that’s the idea. Perhaps these people are right—I don’t know—but I know one thing—you’ve got to have something to put in place of the old order—something that will work—not just something that sounds all right. Well, we needn’t go into that. We are dealing with concrete facts, not abstract theories. Take away the props and the building will come down. Blunt is one of the props of Things as They Are.’

It's a shame she ventured on to write Passenger to Frankfurt...