::READERS REVIEWS::

Not Free SF Reader - Here you have your dodgy financier story. Or, when you have a high flyer who is important to the running of your economy any sex, drugs, booze or more esoteric kinks may be overlooked while they are doing the job for you.

But, being a Christie novel, you still have to have a deader - and the stakes are a bit more international in this scenario.

One, Two Buckle My Shoe - One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (Hercule Poirot)

This book is a thoroughly enjoyable read with elements that still resonate today. Hercule Poirot is in rare form as he makes a dreaded trip to the dentist and finds himself involved in more than he bargained for. In typical Poirot fashion he is soon hot on the trail of insurrectionists, murder most foul with a plot to overthrow the British government thrown in for good measure. Poirot's ability to appreciate how his peculiar foibles make him the object of scorn by some members of a household in the countryside he visits during his investigation make this Christi novel different from others where Poirot seems to take himself much too seriously.

The Common Denominator Is a London Dentist's Office - Among the subtlest and "deepest" of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot stories, ONE, TWO, BUCKLE MY SHOE is a murder mystery that comments on the British class system. That the story is essentially about class is clear from the widely differing social stations of its cast of characters. Take, for example, the three victims: first, a respected dentist named Mr. Morley is found shot to death in his office; then one of Morley's patients, a wealthy Greek immigrant, dies while another patient, a nondescript charity worker with the "pompous" name of Mabelle Sainsbury Seale, vanishes. Hercule Poirot and Chief Inspector Japp must find the common link between these three occurrences. The matter is complicated further by the fact that Alistair Blunt, a financier who gained his status by marrying into an Anglo-Jewish banking family (one obviously based on the Rothschilds) was also a patient in Morley's office on the day of his death; Japp believes that Blunt himself was intended to be the victim. But for the ever-observant Poirot, the case really begins with something quite mundane: that is, a shoe...a woman's black patent leather shoe with a large, ornate buckle...

Also highly recommended, for those who have finished the novel: the superb made-for-TV version of ONE, TWO, BUCKLE MY SHOE, starring David Suchet as Poirot and Philip Jackson as Japp, and available on DVD from Amazon.com.

Interesting Set-Up - One Two Buckle My Shoe is one of the more contrived of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novels but its twisted loops are definately part of the fun. The author does play around with politics in her conservative, often very naive, way but handles it much more smoothly than she did in her early twenties spy novels. The solution to the killer is both predicatable and satisfying as Christie crawls right up to the preposterous and then pulls back just a little. This is one of the Poirot novels that could have used Hastings a foil and his prescence is sadly missed, particularly as everyone at a certain dentist's office on a particular morning has something to hide and it would have been fun to read Hastings switching prime suspects with each new revelation. All in all, not a classic Christie but an interesting one.

Along the same lines as Hitchcock's "Notorious" - ONE, TWO, BUCKLE MY SHOE has not, I think, topped anyone's list of favorite Agatha Christies for many years. Re-reading it again after many years, it seems to me to share some similarities to CURTAIN, Poirot's last case. Both of them are sort of bloodless, intellectual thrillers that play with ideas in a modernist way. BUCKLE is all about the cult of the superman, in this case the sacred financier Alistair Blunt, the Bernard Baruch type moneymind whom Britain "needs" and whose wellbeing is necessary to prevent the collapse of the UK economy. The attitude of the police and the secret service is, He may have his peccadilloes, but by Jove we need him in this country. In CURTAIN, which must have been written about the same time, the superman takes a darker turn, he is the man who can inspire others to commit murder for him, by the power of suggestion, but anyone who finishes ONE, TWO, BUCKLE MY SHOE will know why I linked these two books on this one point.

I was surprised and shocked by the ending. Only Poirot could have figured out all the ramifications of the case, as well as to pull out the identity of the killer's accomplice out of thin air. I don't feel that Christie was using "fair play" in this novel, but it is so baffling that I don't even care! I love reading about her tormented, independent young women who cab't stand their own lives and yearn for something better--in this case. Jane Oliveira, the financier's niece. I wonder if elements of this novel didn't find their way into Ben Hecht's screenplay for Hitchcock's film NOTORIOUS. It's all about how you live with yourself when you're doing something wrong if it is for the public good, or if you can persuade yourself that it is while you're committing the crime (or sin, to be moral about it).

BUCKLE, like CURTAIN, is a little vague about--is there a war going on or not? Maybe it is set in an alternate universe in which others are fighting the war so we don't have to talk about it. In today's political climate, that kind of aesthetic amnesia rings a bell. Back then, it was a remarkably daring feat for the always experimental Agatha Christie.

Leaving the dentist’s practice after an appointment, Poirot happens to notice the arrival of Mabelle Sainsbury Seale and returns to her the shiny buckle that has fallen from her shoe. Later, he hears from Japp that Morley has died of a gun shot. Between Poirot’s appointment and Morley’s death there were only three patients: Banker Alistair Blunt, Mabelle, and a Greek blackmailer named Amberiotis. The presence of a man thought essential to the country’s economic survival (Blunt) ensures Japp’s involvement in the case; when Amberiotis turns up dead from an overdose of anaesthetic, it is thought that the dentist has killed himself after realising the accident for which he had been responsible. Movements at the dental surgery are inconclusive. Morley’s partner, Reilly, is a rogue but seems to have no motive. Morley’s secretary had been called away by a fake telegram. Her boyfriend, Frank Carter, had a weak motive given that Morley had attempted to dissuade her from seeing him. Also present at the surgery was Howard Raikes, a prickly left-wing activist violently opposed to Blunt but enamoured of his niece. There is too little evidence for Poirot to construct an alternative hypothesis, but he senses that the story is not complete. When Mabelle goes missing, his fears are realised. A search for her is conducted, and some time later her body is apparently found in a sealed chest in the apartment of Mrs. Albert Chapman, who has herself disappeared. The corpse’s face has been smashed in, and Poirot notices its dull buckled shoes. He is skeptical of the theory that Mrs. Chapman has killed Mabelle and fled. Sure enough, once the dental records are produced by Morley’s successor at the surgery, it is discovered that the corpse is Mrs. Chapman’s. The hunt for Mabelle continues. Poirot is now drawn into the life of the Blunt family. An attempt is made on Alistair Blunt’s life at which Raikes is a bystander. Poirot is invited down to Blunt’s house, where he is persuaded to undertake a search for Mabelle. While he is there, a second attempt is made on Blunt’s life, but it is seemingly thwarted by Raikes. The pistol used in the attack is found in the hand of none other than Frank Carter, who has taken a job as gardener at the house under a false identity. When a maid at the surgery admits to having seen Carter on the stairs going up to Morley’s office, it seems that Carter is likely to be tried and convicted of both the murder and the attempted murder. The fact that the gun with which he was captured was the twin of the murder weapon only makes things worse for him. In the climax of the novel – one of the darkest in the Poirot series – Poirot realises that by allowing Carter to persist in his lies he can ensure that the real killer goes free, and wrestles with his conscience. Eventually he presses Carter to admit the truth: that when he entered Morley’s office the dentist was already dead. It is the final element in the puzzle. Poirot visits Alistair Blunt and explains the murders. The real Mabelle Sainsbury Seale had known him and his first wife, Gerda, whom he had never divorced, in India; his money came from his now deceased second wife, and he would be disgraced if caught in bigamy. Running into Blunt in the street, she had recognised and spoken to him in front of his niece, but had not realised whom he had become. By chance she had mentioned this chance encounter to the blackmailer, Amberiotis, who made the connection between the name \'Blunt\' and the wealthy banker. He began to blackmail Blunt. Gerda, posing under several aliases including that of Mrs. Albert Chapman, invited Mabelle to visit her, killed her, and took her identity, but had to buy new shoes because Mabelle’s did not fit her. This is why the corpse’s buckles were dull, while the buckle of the woman whom Poirot met going into Morley\'s surgery were shiny: the fake Mabelle had newer shoes than the real one, who was by that time decomposing in the chest. The woman in the trunk could hardly have worn through a new pair of shoes in a single day. Ironically, the face of the corpse had been disfigured not because it wasn’t Mabelle, but because it was. Alistair Blunt had attended his appointment, shot Morley and stashed his body in the side office with his wife’s help. Having appeared to leave the surgery, he returned and changed the dental records of Mrs. Albert Chapman and Mabelle in order to ensure that the corpse would be identified as Mrs. Chapman: a woman who in reality did not exist; the motive for killing Morley was simply to prevent him from detecting this change. At the end of Mabelle’s appointment, Gerda left, while Blunt dressed as a dentist in order to administer the overdose to Amberiotis, a new patient who had never met Morley. Poirot’s involvement had forced Blunt to compound the lies with talk of assassins and spies as the detective had relentlessly tracked the truth. At the novel’s bleak conclusion, Poirot is forced to admit that Blunt does indeed stand in public life “for all the things that to my mind are important. For sanity and balance and stability and honest dealing�. Nevertheless, he adds: “I am not concerned with the fate of nations, Monsieur. I am concerned with the lives of private individuals who have the right not to have their lives taken from them.� He turns Blunt over to the police. Later, he confronts Blunt\'s niece and her fiancé Howard Raikes, telling them that they now have the \"new heaven and the new earth\" that they desire, asking them only to \"let there be freedom and let there be pity\".

Good, but complicated - The story first started off alright- all the characters were introuduced, and everything sounded interesting.

however, the story goes on and on and it became a bit complicated. without paying close attention, one could be easily wandered off somewhere and got lost in the plot.

but it isnt a bad one. recommanded to skillful readers / experienced Christie's readers.

One, Two Buckle My Shoe - One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (Hercule Poirot)

This book is a thoroughly enjoyable read with elements that still resonate today. Hercule Poirot is in rare form as he makes a dreaded trip to the dentist and finds himself involved in more than he bargained for. In typical Poirot fashion he is soon hot on the trail of insurrectionists, murder most foul with a plot to overthrow the British government thrown in for good measure. Poirot's ability to appreciate how his peculiar foibles make him the object of scorn by some members of a household in the countryside he visits during his investigation make this Christi novel different from others where Poirot seems to take himself much too seriously.

very good but very complicated story.without interest no body can understand