Charts on table

Charts on table ( in Cards one the Table in the original editions in English), is a Detective novel of Agatha Christie, published in 1936, putting in scene the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.

The intrigue of the novel

Mr. Shaitana invited at his place eight people: four unknown and four really good sleuths (Hercule Poirot, Ariadne Oliver, colonel Race and superintendant it Battle). After the dinner, the group of the four unknown ones forms a table of Bridge in a corner, the group of Poirot settles in another part of the living room of Shaitana while this last assied in an armchair, in front of a fire of chimney, back to the table of the four unknown ones. At the end of the evening, one realizes that the host was stabbed in his armchair and that the culprit is probably one of the four unknown ones, each of the four proving thereafter to be an unpunished criminal…

Comment

The idea of the novel, Cartes on table appeared in chapter 3 of the preceding novel published by Agatha Christie ( A.B.C against Poirot ), in a scene during which, remained only at Poirot after the departure of the inspector Japp, the detective and his friend Hastings exchange ideas on the assumption of one order of one crime to the chart . Poirot proposes with his/her friend, hardly packed by this idea, the following receipt:

Let us imagine four people around a bridge table and a fifth, the outsider, sitting in front of the chimney. At the end of the evening, the outsider is found died. One of the four players rose and killed it when it was its turn to do it dead. The three others, absorptive by the part, do not have anything considering. Here are which would be a crime for you! Which of the four killed it?

One finds this screen in the novel developed on this basis, but decorated of a second quartet of characters, that of the detectives, composed of Poirot, Colonel Race (of the secret services), Superintendant Battle (of Scotland Yard) and of Ariadne Oliver, author of detective novels and car-caricatures of Agatha Christie.

Editions

1936 : in Cards one the Table - Hakes, London
1937: in Cards one the Table - Dodd Mead, New York
1939: Charts on table - Bookstore of the Fields-Élysées, coll. The Mask n° 275, in a translation of Louis Postif
1992: Charts on table - Bookstore of the Fields-Élysées, coll. Integral volume 5 (the years 1936-1937) , Paris - New translation of Alexis Champon

Televised adaptation

The novel was the subject of a televised adaptation, in 2005, under the same title , within the framework of the televised series Hercule Poirot , with David Suchet in the role of Hercule Poirot. The first diffusion took place in December 2005 with the the United States and in March 2006 with the the United Kingdom.

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