The Clocks (Hercule Poirot)

Trying to have some fun with one of mystery's typical conventions, Christie comes up with a clunker this time. Using a British spy, with the far too cute name of Colin Lamb, as the Hastings stand in; Christie has Poirot work from home in homage to John Dickson Carr's locked room mysteries. Crescent shaped neighborhoods, international espionage, a damsel in distress, and the titular clocks all come into play in this mess of a mystery that definitely needed more Poirot to make it palatable. Too many red herrings and the underlying combination of spying and romance sit uncomfortably together causing nothing more than annoyance for the reader. As it stands it doesn't so much entertain as bore and when all is resolved you are relieved as opposed to amused as you realize this one's finally over.

"The Clocks" starts with possibly one of the strangest setups in the Agatha Christie canon: a young woman is called to an address to do typing for the blind resident that has specially requested her, only to find a body in a room full of clocks - all of which, oddly enough, are set at the wrong hour. Even odder, her client Mrs Pebmarsh denies having ever made the call requesting for a stenographer in the first place. The man has no identification about him at all except for a card with the name of an insurance company on it that doesn't exist.

The investigation involves the close-knit community of Wilbraham Crescent, all of whom have their own idiosyncrasies and secrets to be uncovered, but the police work grounds to a halt when no one comes forward to identity the body. Meanwhile, intelligence agent Colin Lamb has arrived in the vicinity on the tail of an international spy, only to get caught up in the corresponding mystery after Sheila Webb rushed from the house in hysterics after finding the body.

Style-wise, the plot flits a tad uncomfortably between Inspector Hardcastle's third-person narrative and Agent Colin Lamb's first-person account and "The Clocks" is ultimately a rather odd little mystery, mingling several ideas strewn throughout Christie's other books, including international espionage (as you'd expect from [[ASIN:0451201175 Tommy and Tuppence]]), neighborhood psychology (as in [[ASIN:1579126251 Miss Marple]]) and a rather light helping of Poirot. He's only in about three scenes, but is at his infuriating best, quietly taking in the evidence that the police provide him with, noting the inconsistencies, and exercising his little grey cells at leisure to draw the right conclusions.

There are a couple of extraordinary coincidences, such as an unlikely invalid witness (straight out of Alfred Hitchcock's [[ASIN:B00003CXC7 Rear Window]]) who was watching from across the street, and a connection between the two other-wise unrelated cases, but on a lighter note, Poirot also provides commentary on several other crime writers and their techniques - poking fun at the reliance on far-fetched coincidence, lucky chance, melodrama and violence. One gets the feeling that Christie was having a little bit of fun with this particular story, taking the facets of other mystery writers and mixing them into her own plot. She also manages to get a little dig in at her readership when Poirot mentions that contemporary readers are more likely to write in and complain to the author about inaccuracies!

This is perhaps *not* Christie at her best, though she still displays a deft hand at misdirection, careful plotting, and putting the devil in the details. More disbelief than usual has to be suspended for the denouement, but "The Clocks" is definitely a page-turner, mainly due to the riveting opening and crackling pace.

This 1963 mystery begins with a young woman going out on an assignment from a secretarial service and finding a dead body instead of a client waiting to dictate a letter. Understandably upset, she runs out into the street screaming. There she meets a young man, Colin Lamb, who tries to help her. Mr. Lamb (not his real name) is the son of Sgt. Battle and may not be the innocent marine biologist that he claims to be. In fact there may be many things in that neighborhood that are not just as they appear to be. Colin investigates on his own for a while but ultimately turns to Hercule Poirot for help.

The story is well plotted. Some aspects might confuse a 21st century reader, like the scarcity of home telephones in English houses 50 years ago, the tensions that existed between Russia and the rest of Europe and the difficulities of identifying a dead body during that time. Even with these problems the story is very well written and still quite enjoyable.