名探偵とソフトウェアエンジニア

このブログはヌーラバーブログリレー2022の11日目の記事です。

 

読書の秋ですね。秋はもう終わった？Eh bien 確かにそういう意見もあることは知っています、こんにちは名探偵小宮山です。この記事のアイディアの草案の前身を考え始めた頃はきっと秋だったのでこの記事の季語は秋です問題ありません。

 

ヌーラボには語学学習手当という手厚い制度があり、入社後2年は毎月上限2万円、その後は上限1万円まで語学学習の費用を手当として申請することができます。語学学習を強制されるようなことはありませんが、海外メンバーも多く在籍するヌーラボでは英語が飛び交うシーンも多く、支援制度も充実しているため英語学習モチベーションを高く保ち続けるのに良く適した環境だと日々実感しています。

そして私もこの語学学習手当をフル活用させてもらっています（毎月2万円上限にヒットさせられるほどの量ではないですが）。

 

読書の秋と充実の語学学習支援制度、インプットしたのであればアウトプットもすべしとよく言われています。私から提供できる、自分と同じような境遇にある語学学習者にとって一番価値ある情報とは何か。おすすめの名探偵本に関する情報に違いありませんね。私は知っています、皆さんが真に欲しているものはミステリーであるということを。たとえそれがどんな言語で書かれてあろうとも。

 

それでは私が絶賛読み進めている名探偵ポアロシリーズ各本の個人的評価と簡単な紹介をしていきたいと思います。

物語の真相に迫るようなネタバレは含んでいないはずですが、一切の事前情報なくシリーズを楽しみたいor楽しむ予定がある方にはここ以降読み進めないことを推奨します。シリーズを出版順に20冊ほど読了しましたら是非ともここへお戻りください。あるいは名探偵ポアロを語る会を一緒に開きましょう。

前提情報

レビューにあたっての前提情報は下記の通りです。

• 各本は英語版
  • 出版当初ママかは不明
  • 電子版（Kindle）
  • 日本語版は未読
  • The Murder of Roger Ackroydは日本語版を読んだことがあるためスキップ
• 筆者は道半ばの第二言語学習者
  • CEFRにおけるB1程度と思われる
  • 読み進むにつれて成長して内容の解像度が高まっている可能性あり
• 評価は主観
  • 全体的に高評価なのでハズレはない
• 読了順はほぼ出版順
  • 参考: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercule_Poirot_in_literature 
  • Murder on the Orient Express -> The A.B.C. Murders -> 残り出版順
• 評価観点
  • Mystery: ミステリー小説としての完成度、奥深さ
  • Difficulty: 英語学習者視点での難易度
  • Recommend: おすすめ度
  • S > A > B …

 

早見表

 

Title	Mystery	Difficulty	Recommend	One word
The Mysterious Affair at Styles	A	B	B	The poison
The Murder on the Links	A	B	B	Good Hastings
Poirot Investigates	B	C	A	Short stories
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd	–	–	–	–
The Big Four	The Big Four	C	The Big Four	The Big Four
The Mystery of the Blue Train	B	S	C	Human drama
Black Coffee	C	C	A	For play
Peril at End House	A	B	B	Thrilling
Lord Edgware Dies	A	B	A	Dramatic
Murder on the Orient Express	S	B	B	Must read
Three Act Tragedy	B	A	B	Phycology
Death in the Clouds	B	B	B	Good stage
The A.B.C. Murders	A	B	A	Spectacular
Murder in Mesopotamia	B	B	B	Good stage
Cards on the Table	B	B	B	Bet on the murderer
Murder in the Mews	C	C	B	Middle story
Dumb Witness	A	B	S	Bob the dog

 

個別のコメントと簡単な紹介

 

以下は個別のコメントと簡単な紹介です。 最初は日英両方を書くつもりだったのですが、英版を書き上げた後に翻訳を始めてみたら非常に微妙な文章になってしまったのでオリジナルの英文のみで失礼します。英語版を読み進めているので言語力の稚拙さを考慮してもきっと本意に近い内容になっていると思われます。

 

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

The first story of M. Hercule Poirot. One day, the author was told that she couldn’t write mysteries. I don’t know why the person said so to her though, she certainly got the statement and made a great objection by doing it herself. This one is not only the first Poirot series, but also her first book. I wonder why the person said she couldn’t write “mysteries”, despite she’d never written any books.​

 

Aside from the historical value of this book, we can see all good Poirot essences in it. A rich woman was murdered by poisoning. The room where she died was closed until the door was broken by other members. Some people, of course her relatives included, would profit by the deceased’s death. By accident, a well-known retired detective M. Hercule Poirot was present there. What a coincidence!

I’m sure no more introduction is needed for you. One of the great detectives’ series starts from here on.

 

The Murder on the Links

The second entry is exactly the authentic sequel of this series. This time, of course someone is murdered, the case didn’t take place in closed room but open links as the title mentioned.

Did you know of Captain Hastings by the way? He occupies so called Dr. Watson position. Poirot series is often narrated from his perspective, and this book is one of them. More than that, I can say this one is sort of featuring him. I can’t spoil, I never want to spoil anything to you. All I can say up until now is that I’m a big fan of him. Check it out!

 

Poirot Investigates

This one contains a bunch of short stories. I don’t know why she suddenly made up shot ones following the former long two ones. However, you would appreciate that you can make your recognition of Poiro world deeper by reading through this book. To be honest, the vast environment and atmosphere of this series, supposed to be Europe in the early 20th century, are not so familiar to us. The main protagonist Poirot is Belgian who occasionally ejaculates French phrases. Even though those French phrases are supposed to be easy and basic, almost all of them are not comprehensible to me. I can do nothing but skip them out. Fortunately, it doesn’t matter at all in terms of following whole plots. I might have lost a lot of small flavors by skipping them. It’s a pity, honestly. I will have to learn French in order to label myself as a big fan of Agatha Christie.

 

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

I skipped this one because I had read it in my mother tongue Japanese. Although I could review this one, it seems unfair to evaluate it from my reading in Japanese. Besides, I may forget a bunch of important stuff of the plot, because it was a few years ago when I read it. I’d like not to write about it on this occasion for these reasons.

 

The Big Four

This is The Big Four. I can say nothing but it’s The Big Four. Who needs further explanations? This is The Big Four. Oh, this is The Big Four. I’m never gonna forget… The Big Four.

 

The Mystery of the Blue Train

As I still couldn’t get over the excitement of The Big Four, here was the next book. I was sure no matter how worse this book was, I would appreciate the fact I was able to keep reading this series.

Without any bias, possibly coming from The Big Four, I wanna say this one is a bit controversial. It seemed like human drama rather than mystery. There was a murder and the environment of the case was indeed intriguing. Murder on the train! It must be one of the exciting environments everyone looks forward to. However, we’d better put the excitement aside until another murder takes place on another express another day. As mentioned above, this book features human drama and it’s a bit hard to comprehend whole emotional terms and nuances for English learners, myself included. At any rate, I can still recommend this one. There’s no big reason to skip it out if you are a big fan of this series.

 

Black Coffee

The upcoming book is play! Precisely, it was originally written as play by Christie, and later recomposed as a novel by another person. Since it’s supposed to be play, whole plot and circumstance seems more explicit than other books. It might be unfair to compare it to other books. Some serious mystery fans might label it as cheap and not an authentic Poirot novel. However I definitely have great reasons to recommend this one especially to English learners. It’s simple and straightforward! One day, an ordinary peaceful family evening was held in a room. The head of the household said that one of them in the room must have stolen his great experiment paper. He went on, he would turn off the room light and if the one got it back during the darkness, everything would be over without any trouble. He made the room dark, and then during the darkness…

 

Peril at End House

All books here belong to Poirot series. Each book is a part of the series, so we should have sort of expectation or anticipation that the series is supposed to be. The first book must have it, because it is the origin. The second, I’m sure, has it as well. How are other sequels since then? Short stories, (Ackroyd was skipped, sorry), The Big Four, a human drama and play followed the great two books. I hardly say any of them are exactly the successors that we all are waiting for. We no longer have to wait, here is the successor, Peril at End House!

This time, no one had been murdered when Poirot started his investigation. However, he realized someone must have tried to kill a woman in front of Poirot himself…

 

Lord Edgware Dies

Disguising, alibis and lies, every single tiny stuff can be a great clue. When the private detective ends up disclosing all about the case, what will the criminal make of it? This book would reveal the scene. I don’t want to give further information to you, of course. It’s our duty not to spoil anything to potential readers in the future, in particular, the book we are talking about is mystery genre.

I don’t have so much to talk about this book honestly. This one is orthodox and typical Poirot book. I’m sure you would never regret reading it if you are looking for the Poirot book.

 

Murder on the Orient Express

This one is quite popular. I guess most people have heard or seen the title somewhere at least once, so have I. We can easily find a few movies based on this book. Why is it so popular? Why does everyone love it? Murder on the train! Murder in the closed compartment! I can pick indefinite reasons, but I’m afraid I don’t want to take any potential risk no matter how little it is. If you have not read this book and not got critical spoilers, I choose it as the best out of this list I’ve read so far.

I have a funny story about this book. At first, I tried to read the graded reader version of it. I should have bought it for Kindle, but what I bought was a paperback by mistake. However, I didn’t notice the fact and started reading the book that I had already bought as an ungraded version for some reason. I’d read a quarter when I finally received the paperback and noticed what I was reading at that time. If I prioritized extensive reading, I should have switched to the graded version. I refused it. I had a quick look at the graded version, then I noticed immediately it dropped a decent amount of content. Since I’d read the ungraded version somehow so far, I was sure I could power through to the end. Even if I couldn’t get precise emotions and nuances, the whole plot and atmosphere were enough comprehensible to me. My reading activity, which was originally supposed to be extensive reading for English learning, turned into pure pleasure reading from here on.

This book was also my first Poirot book because of these reasons. I may have a bit biased favor of it for the same reasons though, I’m still sure this is a masterpiece.

 

Three Act Tragedy

This book is allegedly one of the most difficult to predict who did it. I’ve never succeeded in predicting it as much as I remember. I usually don’t seriously try to do that and just let myself in so called author’s misdirections and traps. I think Poirot series is not the one that we are expected to investigate and solve cases by ourselves, because psychology is a great part of this series. Poirot is a big advocate of psychology. He has watched so many criminals, I’m sure most of them were murderers, that he knows too much about criminal phycology. Even if he doesn’t have any valuable testimonies, he can rely on his expertise of psychology to trace truthiness.

 

Death in the Clouds

Here is another murder on a vehicle. This time the vehicle is AIR PLANE! The succeeded woman was on a seat that was one of ordinary seats in the plane, where many people were present as well, where she was murdered The murderer must have been in the plane, but who? how? No one had a chance to do it without being seen by anyone. Poirot was present there by the way. He found a mysterious needle that was presumably used with a blowpipe. All people in the plane stated that they weren’t acquainted with her. Did you trust their statements? Of course Poirot didn’t, and he started his expert investigation.

 

The A.B.C. Murders

My first impression of this book was that the title sounded cool. What is A.B.C? Acronym? Secret code? I couldn’t help opening this one despite I hadn’t decided to read through this series yet. This was my second book of Poirot series following “Murder on the Orient Express” as I mentioned before. Since I was not so familiar with this series, I still had a lot of difficulties following the characters and the plot. This was also my first opportunity to get into the narrative through Captain Hastings’ eyes. Even though I had a lot of difficulties reading through it, I can say this story is spectacular.

One day, Poirot received a wicked letter. It said the sender would get rid of a specific person and challenge the honorable detective to hinder it. The letter was signed by A.B.C. A few days later, the predicted murder took place, and then we ended up realizing this was the beginning…

 

Murder in Mesopotamia

I often come across a book like this one that I can make no particular evaluation but a good decent Poirot book. It doesn’t mean this one isn’t worth reading, of course. When you feel like reading a Poirot book, I confidently recommend it to you. You would never regret reading it, because you are looking for Poirot book and this book is one of what you are looking for.

There was a mansion. One day, a wife was found dead. When her husband found her body, all of the windows and the door of the room were surely locked. The detective Poirot was on his trip for some reason. One person who was present at the scene realized that the detective was close enough to ask to investigate this case…

 

Cards on the Table

This book has a funny concept that was mentioned in the author’s forward. Which person do you bet on as the murderer? That is the concept throughout the book. There were five people in the room where the host of the parity was murdered. All of them were playing a card game enthusiastically and no one noticed his death until Poirot, who was invited to the party of course, entered the room and found him dead. One of four people in the room must be guilty. Let’s bet!

A female mystery writer appeared in the book. I couldn’t help feeling the author herself through the fictional writer. The writer said that she regretted making the famous protagonist in her book a foreigner, and thanks to his background she often received a bunch of criticism from his country. It’s funny. She must be a manifestation of the author’s mind.

 

Murder in the Mews

This one is quite short, less than 100 pages, but still a single book. It may be unfair to include it into this article with other long ones. Regardless of the shortness, the plot was, of course, tortuous and mysterious! So, I’m glad to introduce it here, you can dive into a decent Poirot world without spending a whole holiday to read it through.

 

Dumb Witness

This book was compelling to me. I’m not perfectly sure if it’s a great mystery or not, but I definitely enjoyed reading through it from beginning to end.

One day, Poirot received a letter from elder woman. The letter said quite vaguely she had some trouble relating to her relatives. An accident, supposed to be a natural accident caused by her dog, written in the letter intrigued Poirot’s attention for some reason, and then he left to her location immediately. When he arrived at her location, he ended up finding she had died a couple weeks ago…

 

おわり

以上、名探偵ポアロシリーズ個人的評価&紹介でした。

皆様にとっても素敵な読書の秋となりますことを祈っております。そして一緒にネタバレ談義ができる日を楽しみにしております。