¡Hola y bonito día a todos! Este es mi primera reseña en video. Una disculpa por la calidad del audio, ya que estoy usando la grabadora de sonidos de mi teléfono como micrófono.
Si quieren evadir los spoilers, pueden hacer click aquí para leer una reseña más breve y sin spoilers.
For non-Spanish speakers: I hope to subtitle next videos in the future. While I'm at it on the next videos, I will leave you the English text of this book review:
Book review of "Five Little Pigs" by Agatha Christie
Let’s imagine for a moment that you’re a famous detective and you’re visited by a young woman who’s anxious and bewildered by the possibility that an injustice was committed against her mother, who died in prison more than a decade ago. Let’s imagine that the deceased, in her final letter, tells her daughter that she was innocent, that she was not the one who murdered her father. And you, the detective, accept the case on the premise that only the truth can confirm or refute the mother’s guilt.
This scene opens the novel Five Little Pigs, written by Agatha Christie, the legendary “Queen of Crime", and featuring Hercule Poirot, one of her most iconic characters. Published in 1942 in both the United States and England, this novel has a unique charm that keeps readers hooked from beginning to end.
At the start of the plot, we meet Carla Lemarchant, the orphaned daughter of painter Amyas Crale, who died after being poisoned by his wife, Caroline Crale-Spalding. Before dying of illness in prison, Caroline writes a letter to her daughter, telling her that she was innocent. Disturbed by this revelation and determined to uncover the truth, she asks Poirot to reopen the case, thereby accepting the possibility that it might have been a mistake or that her mother was indeed guilty and simply wanted to soften her image in her daughter’s eyes.
Poirot’s investigation is practically documentary in nature. First, he interviews those who followed the case closely, from the defense attorneys for the alleged killer to the police officer who led the investigation. He also questions the five people who, at the time, witnessed the deceased’s final hours. Those individuals’ reactions upon recalling the incident ranged from discomfort to utter indifference.
As you read on, a doubt suddenly arises: Was Caroline the one who killed Amyas, or was she someone else’s scapegoat?
Looking closely at the details of the case, Caroline had sufficient motive to murder Amyas. The main motive was Amyas’s constant infidelities with all the models who worked with him. However, the last straw was his romance with Elsa Greer. Why? Because of the seriousness with which the relationship between the lovers was developing; this was no longer just another affair: it was a precursor to divorce and a second marriage. And Caroline was not going to tolerate such humiliation.
This is where we must ask ourselves: Why did she tell her daughter Carla in her letter that she was innocent?
Christie masterfully presents us with a story in which everything taken for granted must always be put to the test, no matter how uncomfortable the truth may be. We see the memories of those involved, their inner thoughts, their inferences, and perhaps even their prejudices—all through the impartial eyes of Poirot, who knows that the truth might be too harsh even for a young orphan like Carla.
While the reader remains hooked from start to finish by this drama of secrets and lies, it’s worth noting that the reading can become a bit tedious due to the repetition of the central narrative—the death of Amyas Crale—though certain discrepancies and loose ends are deliberately left hanging, inviting the reader to participate in the investigation and venture into their own conclusions.
If you’re curious to find out how this case ended, I invite you to read it in whatever edition or format you have on hand—whether digital, physical, or as an audiobook. If you live in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, you can find this books in the Central Library of the Autonomous University of Yucatan. The edition they have there is from the Biblioteca Oro collection, published by Molino, just like the one you see here on the screen. As a side note, I’d like to point out that this edition also includes three supplementary stories: “Los mormones” by Juan Buscón; “Complex Mockery” by Joe J. Smithsay, and “Colonel Warner's Family” by C. Franklin Miller.
And that wraps up my review. If you have any thoughts, suggestions, or reading recommendations, feel free to leave them in the comments section. See you next time!