the Four ( in The Big Furnace in the original edition British in English) is a Detective novel of Agatha Christie, published in 1927, putting in scene the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and her faithful friend the captain Hastings.

Comment

the Four is not strictly speaking a novel, with an intrigue being held beginning until the end. The genesis of the book testifies besides to this difficulty of classification. The book was initially composed of twelve new published in the columns of the magazine in The Sketch , news which had like discussion thread a fight of Poirot and Hastings against a criminal band having raminifications on a world level and engaged in a conspiracy aiming at seizing the power on the whole Earth. Each intrigue was independent of the different one, even if a narrative progression intervened in knowledge each time more increased than Poirot and Hastings had of their four enemies.

The transformation of the twelve news into novel was accompanied by the addition of an introduction and an epilog, the final book comprising eighteen chapters.

Very as far as to the kind of the Detective novel ( the Four do not have for example any character of the in [[whodunit]] , since one very quickly knows the identity of the majority of the criminals of the intrigue), this book is attached partially to the kinds of the Spy novel and of the Roman of adventures.

Characters

  • Hercule Poirot
  • the captain Hastings
  • four or the Four Large ones or the Great Quartet :
    • the Number one: Li Chang Yen (Chinese)
    • the Number Two: Abe Ryland, millardaire (American)
    • the Number Three: Mrs. Olivier, chemist (French)
    • the Number Four: unknown identity (English), called it Destructor
  • one also meets:
    • the Inspector Japp
    • the Giraud inspector,
    • the countess Vera Rossakoff.

Editions

  • 1927 : in The Big Furnace - Hakes, London
  • 1927: in The Big Furnace - Dodd Mead, New York
  • 1933: Four - Bookstore of the Fields-Élysées, coll The Mask n°  133, Paris, in a translation of Red-headed Xavier
  • 1990: Four - Bookstore of the Fields-Élysées, coll. Integral volume 2 (the years 1926-1930) , Paris, in a new translation of Gerard de Chergé

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