Nicotine (novel)
Nicotine (original title Three Act Tragedy ) is the 16th detective novel by Agatha Christie . It first appeared in 1934 in the United States with Dodd, Mead and Company under the title Murder in Three Acts and in January 1935 in the United Kingdom in the Collins Crime Club under its original title. In 1935 Goldmann-Verlag published the German first edition with the translation by Otto van Bebber. In 2016, a new translation by Henning Ahrens was published by Atlantik Verlag Hamburg under the title A tragedy in three acts: a case for Poirot .
Hercule Poirot investigates together with Mr. Satterthwaite, who is known to the reader from the collection of crime stories The Strange Mister Quin from 1930.
action
The novel, structured like a classical play, begins with a dinner party in the house of the actor Sir Charles Cartwright. This house, the "crow's nest", is located high above Loomouth and is a modern bungalow, equipped with all amenities. During the cocktails before dinner, the pastor suddenly collapses and is dead. One suspects natural death, but soon discovers that the pastor has been poisoned - with nicotine .
Then Sir Bartholomew Strange dies in his Yorkshire country estate - the same way, poisoned by nicotine. Hermione, called "Egg" and daughter of Lady Mary Lytton Gore, witnessed the incident both times. She writes to Sir Charles, with whom she is friends and who, like Satterthwaite and Poirot, is on the Riviera. Sir Charles and Satterthwaite immediately travel to Yorkshire and begin the investigation with the local chief of police, Colonel Johnson. Most leads lead to a Mr. Ellis who was briefly employed as a butler for Sir Bartholomew Strange and has now disappeared. But Oliver Manders is also under suspicion for having had an accident near Sir Bartholomew Strange's house the night before the murder.
Since there seems to be a connection between the two murders, they both go to Loomouth to speak to Lady Mary and her daughter again. During this "conference" Poirot enters the scene, who, having returned from the Riviera, wanted to go to Satterthwaite, but did not meet him in London.
Poirot determines that the first murder was just a "dress rehearsal" to distract from the actual victim, Sir Bartholomew Strange. The doctor is a childhood friend of Sir Charles and knows of his previous marriage to a woman who has lived in a nursing home for many years. Divorce is forbidden for these reasons and so the knowledge of the doctor stood in the way of bigamy. Sir Charles had obtained the poison from an agent used to treat roses.
people
- Hercule Poirot, the famous Belgian detective
- Sir Charles Cartwright, an actor
The house guests of the "crow's nest":
- Mr. Satterthwaite, a likable snob,
- Sir Bartholomew Strange - a Harley Street Doctor,
- Miss Milray, the housekeeper
- Angela Sutcliffe, an actress
- Mr. and Mrs. Dacres, owners of a fashion studio
- Anthony Astor, actually Miss Muriel Wills, a stage writer
The local:
- Mr. and Mrs. Babbington, the Vicar of Loomouth and his wife
- Lady Mary Lytton Gore
- Miss Hermione Lytton Gore, called "Egg", daughter of Lady Mary
- Oliver Manders, a journalist
and
- Colonel Johnson, a Yorkshire Police Officer
Reviews
The Times Literary Supplement of January 31, 1935 admits that very few readers will guess the murderer before Poirot reveals the mystery, but complains that the murderer's motive harms the very good story.
Isaac Anderson says in The New York Times Book Review of October 7, 1934, that the motif is quite unusual in the annals of crime. But since this is an Agatha Christie crime thriller starring Hercule Poirot, needless to say it reads well.
Relationships with other works
In the third part of Hercule Poirot's Christmas , Colonel Johnsen alludes to what happened in this novel.
In chapter 5 of the third act, Poirot tells of a mistake in his career that he once made in Belgium. That points to the crime story The Chocolates Box . In a conversation with Mr. Satterthwaite in Act II, Chapter 1, Poirot mentions Styles, the setting of Agatha Christie's first novel The Missing Link . At the end of the second act, Mr. Satterthwaite is about to report on his criminal experience with Harley Quin when he is interrupted by Sir Charles - a reference to the volume of crime stories The Strange Mister Quin .
Major expenses
- 1934 first edition USA Dodd Mead and Company (New York)
- 1935 first edition UK Collins Crime Club (London)
- 1935 German first edition, translation by Otto Albrecht van Bebber, Bern-Leipzig-Vienna: Goldmann Verlag
- 2012 New translation by Henning Ahrens, Frankfurt am Main: Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag
- 2016 New edition of the translation by Henning Ahrens under the title Tragedy in Three Acts , Hamburg: Atlantik Verlag
Film adaptations
Deadly parties
In 1986 a television film was made with Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot . Sir Charles is played by Tony Curtis . The plot moves from the 1930s to the 1980s and from England to Acapulco . The character of Mr. Satterthwaite is replaced by that of Arthur Hastings, who is better known to the public . The original American book title Murder in Three Acts is used as the film title.
Three Act Tragedy
In 2009, the adaptation of Three Act Tragedy was created for the British television series Agatha Christie's Poirot , which was broadcast on January 3, 2010. David Suchet played Hercule Poirot . The figure of Mr. Satterthwaite is completely omitted here.
Audio books
This novel is one of the few by the author, of which there is no generally accessible version as an audio book in German.
For blind and visually impaired people there is an edition as a DAISY audio book , which can be borrowed from the individual audio libraries for the blind . The audio book was produced in 1989 by the Marburg library for the blind . The speaker is the well-known radio and television presenter Thomas Koschwitz . The playing time is 6 hours and 20 minutes.
Web links
- Three Act Tragedy on the official Agatha Christie website
- (1986) Murder in Three Acts in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Three Act Tragedy (2010) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Review by Dr. Michael Drewniok on Buchwurm.info
Individual evidence
- ↑ John Cooper and BA Pyke. Detective Fiction - the collector's guide : Second Edition (Pages 82 and 86) Scholar Press. 1994. ISBN 0-85967-991-8
- ↑ American Tribute to Agatha Christie
- ↑ Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier and Jamie Sturgeon. Collins Crime Club - A checklist of First Editions . Dragonby Press (Second Edition) March 1999 (Page 15)
- ^ German first edition in the catalog of the German National Library
- ^ New translation in the catalog of the German National Library
- ^ The Times Literary Supplement January 31, 1935 (Page 63)
- ↑ The New York Times Book Review October 7, 1934 (Page 20)