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    Taken at the Flood
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    Taken at the Flood
    Unavailable
    Taken at the Flood
    Audiobook6 hours

    Taken at the Flood

    Written by Agatha Christie

    Narrated by Hugh Fraser

    4.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    Part of the new look for Hercule Poirot titles for the 21st century.

    Read by Hugh Fraser, who plays Captain Hastings in the popular TV series.

    A few weeks after marrying an attractive young widow, Gordon Cloade is tragically killed by a bomb blast in the London blitz. Overnight, the former Mrs Underhay finds herself in sole possession of the Cloade family fortune.

    Shortly afterwards, Hercule Poirot receives a visit from the dead man’s sister-in-law who claims she has been warned by ‘spirits’ that Mrs Underhay’s first husband is still alive. Poirot has his suspicions when he is asked to find a missing person guided only by the spirit world. Yet what mystifies Poirot most is the woman’s true motive for approaching him…

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 1, 2007
    ISBN9780007250004
    Unavailable
    Taken at the Flood
    Author

    Agatha Christie

    Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She died in 1976, after a prolific career spanning six decades.

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    Reviews for Taken at the Flood

    4.5/5

    63 ratings7 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      One of the best Agatha Christie stories, immaculately narrated as usual by Hugh Fraser. I defy anyone to guess who did it, or why, or how, until the big reveal. Great characters as always and a wonderful flavour of the practical and psychological problems of Britain immediately post WW2.
    • 4/5
      An interesting story, which evokes a real feeling of the hardships of post war Britain. Again Christie proves herself the mistrss of misdirection as you assume first one character and then another has murdered the victim.
    • 4/5
      Although not among the best-known of Agatha Christie's Poirot novels, Taken at the Flood is never the less very good indeed. An extended family of hangers-on burns in resentment as their rich Uncle Gordon marries a pert little tart, and then is promptly killed in the Blitz, leaving the gold-digging strumpet and her creepy but charismatic brother all that money they'd been counting on for years . . . .Christie is in her stride here, with several memorable characters, and Poirot on good form. This 1948 novel, set in 1946, also portrays the deprivation and confusion of Britain's immediate post-war years very effectively.Recommended.
    • 3/5
      This was not Agatha Christie at her best but it was entertaining. She did completely fool me in one way. I knew very early on who the murderer was—but the plot twist involved the murder not being the one you thought it was. Mistaken identity was also rife in this book. It was clever in a way, but a little “flat.” In a sleepy English village a young bride –just two weeks a widow—when her much older husband is killed in a blitzkrieg and she survives. The husband family resent her—they had never met her. She moves into the mansion she’s inherited with her dominant brother and strange things seem to happen in the neighborhood.
    • 4/5
      In 1944, as the German bombs are falling, Hercule Poirot is safely ensconced in the Coronation Club, when he first hears of the Cloade family. It seems the family patriarch & millionaire, Gordon, was killed when a bomb hit his London home, but his young wife was spared. As it turns out, the wife had previously been married to a Robert Underhay, who had mysteriously disappeared in Africa and was presumed dead. Two years later, Poirot receives a strange visit from one of the Cloade family of Warmsley Vale who has received a message from the spirit world that Robert Underhay is not really dead. Not long after, he reads about the death of an Enoch Arden in the same village. Christie then takes the story to Warmsley Vale, and introduces the Cloade family. It seems that all of them were financially dependent on Gordon Cloade, and that this young wife, Rosaleen, has thrown a bit of a monkey wrench into the situation. Living now in Gordon's home with her brother David, Rosaleen was the sole beneficiary to Gordon's vast estate, and David stands between the family and financial assistance. Rosaleen, it seems, is eager to help, but David despises the rest of the Cloades and refuses to lend them a penny. Things go from bad to worse when a mysterious stranger, one Enoch Arden (the namesake of a poem from Tennyson) appears with a bizarre story about Robert Underhay. Pretty soon someone ends up dead. It is Poirot's job to not only figure out who the murderer is, but to get to the bottom of the whole mess. This won't be a simple task.With several suspects to choose from, Taken at the Flood is one of those stories where the truth is unraveled bit by bit, so that the reader is not really sure of the whodunit until the end. There are plenty of red herrings to sort through -- and just when you think you know who it is, something else pops up to make you think again. Throughout the novel there is a buildup of suspense as you wonder what is really going on here.Not my favorite of Agatha Christie's novels, it is still an enjoyable read. There is a small peek at some of the hardships of postwar British life that enhances the sense of the desperation of these characters, and Christie manages to keep the underlying tension running throughout the novel. Taken at the Flood is Poirot's 27th adventure - and he's still going strong, although the earlier Poirot novels of the 20s & 30s were more to my liking. Recommended for fans of Poirot and for Agatha Christie readers in general - these books may be old, but they're still worth reading.
    • 5/5
      The most interesting feature of TAKEN AT THE FLOOD, apart from the central and rather tangled story of the dashed expectations of the Cloade family, is the social commentary on the effects of World War II not only on Britain as a whole, but also on the personal expectations of those who either served in the forces or stayed at home. In my review of THE HOLLOW, the previous novel, I commented that, although there was no specific reference to the war, people don't seem to realise that the old way of life has gone forever, that the days of large houses and servants to run them has gone forever.In TAKEN AT THE FLOOD Christie explored the changes from a different angle. World War II is a character ever present.Lyn Marchmont has returned home to live with her elderly mother, who was one of those dependent for her allowance on Gordon Cloade. Lyn realises that the money is not going as far as it used to, but her mother has not as yet seen the need for some economies, for doing some of the housework herself.Lyn is unemployed and feels that the qualities that war service encouraged and valued are not valued in this post war world. Enterprise, initiative, command, those were the commodities offered [by the returnees]. But what was wanted? People who could cook and clean, or write decent shorthand. Plodding people who new a routine and could give good service.Lyn was engaged six years before, before the war, and now she has come home to marry Rowley, who stayed home and farmed. He is conscious that she has changed and she thinks he hasn't.And worse, Gordon Cloade's young widow is a stranger and she and her brother have access to the Cloade fortune, which before the war supported the extended family. Lyn thought suddenly, 'But that's what's the matter everywhere. I've noticed it ever since I got home. It's the aftermath the war has left. Ill will. Ill feeling. It's everywhere. On the railways and buses and in shops and amongst workers and clerks and even agricultural labourers. And I suppose worse in mines and factories. Ill will. But here it's more than that. Here it's particular. It's meant!'This theme of nostalgia for the pre-war days, nostalgia for the sense of purpose that imbued the days of war, continues throughout the book. 'Yes, it's soon forgotten - all of it. Back to safety! Back to tameness! Back to where we were when the whole bloody show started! Creep into our rotten little holes and play safe again...'For some the war gave opportunity, only to have it snatched away again when the war ended. But the fabric of society had been irrevocably ruptured. In addition the expenses of the war and its destruction had to be paid for.The views expressed by various characters seem to be Christie's own heartfelt views, the result of her own observations and reflections in the period just after the war, when life can't have been easy.The storyline of TAKEN AT THE FLOOD has its complications and problems. It explores the concept of Enoch Arden, a narrative poem written by Alfred Lord Tennyson in 1864 in which a long missing sailor returns home to find that his wife has re-married. The character Enoch Arden appears not only in this Christie novel, but also in the short story "While the Light Lasts" and in GIANT'S BREAD, the first Christie's six novels written under the pseudonym of Mary Westmacott.I think the plot itself caused Christie a few problems. Hercule Poirot is called in to investigate, and is himself duped by a man whom he vouched for as a reliable witness. The final explanation of the solution to the puzzle is simultaneously clever and inventive, but also a bit out of left field. There is a time when Christie plays with the readiness of the reader to trust the judgement of Lyn Marchmont.
    • 5/5
      A wonderfully intense plot, psychologically well woven and beautifully read!