I had a lot of eyerolls at the romance. I often do, there’s something so cringy about Poirot generalizing about all these young girls and their emotions. Some of the dated gender attitudes, and British ideas about continental views, simply did not age well. Then again, I don’t really go for insta-love in modern romance novels either, so some of it’s just me.

Still, I think this is a good mystery because I spent the whole book trying to figure out how anyone could have committed the crime. This is the opposite of some of the Christie inheritance mysteries with so many possible suspects running around. Here, I felt like no one else had any motive or any opportunity! Actually, I wasn’t even sure that Elinor had motive and opportunity, she didn’t seem terribly into Rodney and it would be incredibly risky to poison food she was also eating. Plus, the whole investigation feels extra tense because Elinor has already been accused.

In general, the wild explanation of how the murder happened and then the convoluted explanation of why win out over the eye-rolling romantic plot.