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Summary: A perfect smooth Whodunit without those dirty tricks!
Review: Four murderers, four detectives and 1 dead Body, but only one of this murderers is the guilty one on killing Mr.Shaitana.Who could it be. Was it Anne Meredith a young woman in her early tenties, Dr. Roberts who is slightly indiscreet in his attention to a Mrs. Craddock, Mrs Lorrimer, a superb bridge player with a logical mind and enormous power of concentration or could it be Major Despard a trained and succesful hunter? Well it's up to our Four Sleuths to reveal the identity of the killer.
Definitely my all time favorite Hercule Poirot mystery with no dirty trick and just a clean and enjoyable mystery to solve. No wonder this was Poirot's personal favorite case of all as Agatha said.Two thumbs up.
Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking
Review: This book is for mystery lovers. It's a book about a host who invites eight guests to play. Althogether (including the host) they are 9. They decide to play bridge, but it's a 4 player game therefore the host has to sit. This is where the real adventure starts. The 2 tables are in separate rooms. The 4 detectives in one room. And the other 4 in another. Soon the host is cleverly murdered. Hercule solves the murder by reading the bridge scores.
There is enough evidence that can point to either person, but no one can figure it out except-HERCULE POIROT
Rating: 
Summary: What Agatha Does Best---
Review: --is plot. Fiendish plots. Labyrinth plots. Impenetrable plots. In "Cards on the Table," she has exceeded herself. It is a whodunit lovers delight. To make such a puzzle work, the circumstances have to be fairly contrived. So you will just have to accept that four of the best sleuths alive all have consented to be guests of a repellent billionaire who claims the other four guests are successful murderers. Why the four accused murderers would also accept is unimportant. The entertainment will be contract bridge with the idea that by knowing a person's bridge game, you will see the inner man (or woman as the case may be.) Actually, this is not true. Some very nice people become gargoyles at the bridge table then instantly revert to their nice selves once the game is over, but we will let this pass. The sleuths are Hercule Poirot, the observer from hell; Supt. Battle, the plodder but tenacious; Colonel Race, pragmatist and gentleman; and Ariadne Oliver, penner of detective novels and rather silly. Why Dame Agatha didn't substitute Jane Marple in Ms. Oliver's place, I do not know. Perhaps Jane didn't play bridge. The guests are stock Christie characters: the Doctor, the Ingénue, the Stern Upper class Lady, and the Military Man. The sleuths play together in one room, the guests play 3+ rubbers in the other room (the reader is supplied with a tally). Sometime during the play, the host is murdered in the same room as the guests with no one the wiser except the murderer, of course. This is an embarrassing state of affairs for the sleuths, having the murder happen almost right under their noses, and they pool their skills to unearth the murderer. We gradually find out more and more about the guests. Each, of course, had an excellent motive for doing the host in. To keep us thoroughly confused, the guests lie at will about themselves and each other, but they cannot outthink, outwit and outplay their opponents for long. We get the solution, and then a twist and then a final twist before Poirot & Co. have successfully settled the matter. This is one of Christie's finer puzzles. It suffers from a static setting (the crime scene), but she invests enough interest in all the characters to keep our attention close and our little gray cells churning.
-sweetmolly-Amazon Reviewer
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Summary: Most Delightful Set-Up (Except for the Victim, I Suppose)
Review: Agatha Christie creates a delightful set-up for mystery fans. It is a dinner party with eight guests and a host. Four people who may have gotten away with murder in one room playing bridge and four detectives playing bridge in the another room, including the always clever Hercule Poirot and the wacky mystery writer Mrs. Ariadne Oliver. By evening's end the host and organizer of this odd dinner party is dead and only one of the four possible murderers could have done it. The author and the four detectives, and thus the reader, have a lot of fun with this conceit. The book spills its tale quickly and makes for a rapid, wonderful read, even if the denoument becomes a little tangled and far-fetched. It is a crazy ride worth taking for a few hours.
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Summary: Most Delightful Set-Up (Except for the Victim, I Suppose)
Review: Agatha Christie creates a delightful set-up for mystery fans. It is a dinner party with eight guests and a host. Four people who may have gotten away with murder in one room playing bridge and four detectives playing bridge in the another room, including the always clever Hercule Poirot and the wacky mystery writer Mrs. Ariadne Oliver. By evening's end the host and organizer of this odd dinner party is dead and only one of the four possible murderers could have done it. The author and the four detectives, and thus the reader, have a lot of fun with this conceit. The book spills its tale quickly and makes for a rapid, wonderful read, even if the denoument becomes a little tangled and far-fetched. It is a crazy ride worth taking for a few hours.
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Summary: A psychological masterpiece!
Review: Agatha Christie's preface to this book says it all. In most mystery novels, finding the murderer is easy; one merely has to focus upon the person who was least likely to have commited the crime. Needless to say, this is not that kind of book. The incomparable Hercule Poirot has always boasted of his insight into the criminal mind. And in this book, he discovers, perhaps, the case most suited to his method. Four murderers, thrown together by a slightly sardonic host. Each had a motive. An oppourtunity. At the end of a bridge game, the host was found dead, and one of the four did it. Hercule Poirot, once again, delves into the psychology of crime and exercises his "little gray cells". A note: At one time or another during the book, all of the suspects will seem the least likely, and most likely to have done it. Perhaps the most obvious candidate for murder is the one that is guilty. I am saying nothing more.
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Summary: Classic locked room mystery
Review: Cards on the Table is classic Agatha Christie and one of her most memorable efforts. The victim, Mr.Shaitana ,is murdered during a game of bridge and all suspects are known at the outset.This is , in effect, a "locked room" mystery and it is up to Hercule Poirot to unmask the murderer. Christie keeps you guessing about the identity of the murderer until the very end. Each suspect in turn appears both innocent and guilty and there are many, many twists and surprises to keep you on your toes. Excellently plotted and masterfully written, this is a superb mystery. Highly recommended
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Summary: Most enjoyable!
Review: Cards on the table is one of Agatha Christies best books,I highly recomend it to anyone who enjoys a good mystery.Poirot shows off his skills once more,using his pscological deduction. Although Agatha Christie states in the beggining that the murderer is only one of the four,and there are no other suspects,the ending is no less surprising.Christie has given each of her suspects reasons and the ability to murder the victim,and it will still leave you guessing at the end. I highly suggest it to Christie fans,as well as other mystery fans.
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Summary: Bridge, anyone?
Review: First published in 1936, this is the 12th Poirot book, the 3rd Superintendent Battle book, and the 2nd Colonel Race book, and has no narrator. It's the first case in which Superintendent Battle, Mrs. Oliver, or Col. Race appear together with Poirot or each other, and the only case in which *all* do so at once.
The story opens at an exhibition of snuffboxes, where Poirot encounters Mr. Shaitana, a collector with a catty manner and a knack for gossip. Shaitana deliberately cultivates a Mephistopholean pose, which at first makes him seem like the potential quarry in the case - but it becomes clear that he's a victim waiting to happen.
For Shaitana, like a few other collectors in Christie's universe, has succumbed to a foolish temptation, and begun collecting *people* - and not just people of talent or genius, but murderers. And being a connoisseur, he collects only the best: those who have gotten away with it. He amuses himself on this occasion by boasting to Poirot of his hobby, without naming names, and inviting him to a little supper party to meet his collection of "tigers" (Poirot having just pointed out that he himself could admire a tiger, but would do so from outside the tiger's cage, having respect for the danger.)
Poirot accepts the supper invitation, however, to find that there are seven other guests, including the three other detectives as well as four guests who are presumably the murderers: explorer Major Despard, a strong silent type; Mrs. Lorrimer, a middle-aged widow who is *very* serious about bridge; timid young Anne Meredith; and Dr. Roberts, a loud and jovial general practitioner.
Shaitana drops hints referring to four possible methods of murder, but otherwise the subject does not come up, and the guests proceed to play bridge after supper - arising from the final game to find their host dead, stabbed sitting beside the fire in full view of the players!
This is, of course, Poirot's fantasy case, as he once remarked in THE ABC MURDERS - because there is no tangible evidence against any one person more than another. There are only the people themselves, and their memories of the evening, and the bridge scores reflecting how the evening progressed. Solving the case depends entirely on being able to understand the people involved. But how to get them to reveal their true selves to an interrogator - or to uncover the crimes that Shaitana believed they'd committed and gotten away with?
Rather than following Poirot's viewpoint in third person throughout, some chapters follow Battle, Race, or Mrs. Oliver as they conduct their own enquiries into the case. Each represents a different style: Battle is a professional police officer, Race an empire-builder-type secret agent, and Mrs. Oliver a writer of detective stories. Battle, of course, has a duty to investigate Shaitana's murder, and does so in an orthodox style, cultivating an image of plodding hard work that tempts one to underestimate him. Race deals with checking out Major Despard, the explorer who's most clearly his kind of person. Mrs. Oliver, for her part, works on worming information out of not only Anne Meredith, but her roommate Rhonda (whose attitude is that Anne could've lived like a duchess for the rest of her life on blackmail if she'd been paying attention).
And, of course, there's Poirot. He's really fascinating to watch in this one as he interacts with each suspect in turn, pursuing two major lines of questioning:
(1) Describe how the bridge games played out, and
(2) Describe the scene of the murder (the elaborate collector's room in Shaitana's house where the bridge games were played).
See if you can figure out where Poirot's questions lead before he reveals his reasoning to his colleagues, and what he learned from the responses he received.
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Summary: Christie Is Good!
Review: I found "Cards On The Table" one of the best atmospheric books Christie wrote. The criminals were fun as were the victims. However, are the cards on the table a red herring. You may need to read one of her best. Hercule Poirot is ever evident as his little grey cells, ponder a new murder...Belgian style. Never Read Christie...Think Again...
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