I always enjoy your observations, even when I don't agree with your preferences. I loved "The Italian Nobleman." I felt that the premise was original and extremely clever, as was the solution. The characters were well drawn for such a short story. And also, I'm an absolute sucker for a murderer who forces himself to do something that is very unpleasant for him in order to get what he wants. In this case it was a small thing--stuffing himself to the gills--but I still cackled when I read it.
Thanks! I definitely admire the murderer's gusto in not letting good food go to waste! Can't say I blame him. TBH, this isn't a big deal for me in a short story especially since I love the plot and find it humorous even though I don't think we're supposed to.
My favourite story from this collection is 'The Adventure Of The Egyptian Tomb.' I just adore the way that Christie sets the scene of the Archaeological dig, and the atmosphere that she creates. It's like a precursor to her other novels and stories set in a hot climate.
Have you seen the BBC series? They expand the stories to fill the desired timeframe - to me they augment the basic story framework, and they have superb production values.
I have. I love the short story episodes. I don't think there is a single did amongst them. The show did such a good job of expanding the stories in a way that improved them instead of just stuffing in padding.
Yes I will do that at some point. The problem with the short story collections at this point is that the stories start to become scattered and appear in multiple collections so I've been thinking about the best way to present them. Poirot's Early Cases are pretty good. I'm not sure why I skipped them at the time. I'll do them for sure in the future.
