Хикори Дикори Док

1955 Poirot novel by Agatha Christie

Hickory Dickory Dock is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 31 October 1955 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in November of the same year under the title of Hickory Dickory Death. The UK edition retailed at ten shillings and sixpence (10/6)
René Halle, a French student residing at Hickory Road, studying English literature
Valèrie Hobhouse, a resident at Hickory Road in full time employment as co owner of Sabrina Fair, a beauty parlour
Elizabeth Johnston, a Jamaican student residing at Hickory Road, studying jurisprudence
Chandra Lal, an Indian student residing at Hickory Road studying political science
Patricia Lane, a student residing at Hickory Road with a diploma in archaeology
Geneviève Maricaud, a French student residing at Hickory Road studying English literature
Colin McNabb, a student residing at Hickory Road, doing post graduate studies in psychology
Gopal Ram, an Indian student residing at Hickory Road studying political science
Jean Tomlinson, a resident at Hickory Road in full time employment doing physical therapy at St Catherine's Hospital
Maria, the Italian cook at Hickory Road
Geronimo, Maria's husband, and the hostel manservant

The title is taken, as are other of Christie's titles, from a nursery rhyme: Hickory Dickory Dock. This is nevertheless one of her most tenuous links to the original nursery rhyme, consisting of little more than the name of a road and an allusion being "in the dock," i. e. on trial. (“‘Hickory, dickory, dock,’ said Nigel, ‘the mouse ran up the clock. The police said, “Boo,” I wonder who, will eventually stand in the Dock?’”).

Philip John Stead's review in the Times Literary Supplement of 23 December 1955 began: "Poirot's return to the happy hunting grounds of detective fiction is something of an event. He is called upon to solve the mystery of a series of apparently trivial thefts at a student's hostel but soon finds himself partnering the police in investigating murder. Mrs Christie rapidly establishes her favourite atmosphere by her skilful mixture of cheerfulness and suspense." After summarising the plot he concluded, "The amount of mischief going on in the hostel imposes some strain on the reader's patience as well as on Poirot's ingenuity; the author has been a little too liberal with the red herrings. Yet the thumb nail sketches of the characters are as good as ever and in spite of the over elaborate nature of the puzzle there is plenty of entertainment." Robert Barnard: "A significant falling off in standards in this mid 'fifties story. A highly perfunctory going through the paces: the rhyme has no meaning within the story; the plot (drugs smuggled in imported haversacks) is unlikely in the extreme; and the attempt to widen the range of character types (Africans, Indians, students of Freud etc.) is far from successful. Evelyn Waugh's diary records that it 'began well' but deteriorated 'a third of the way through into twaddle' – a judgment which, unusually for him, erred on the side of charity."

When the students are attempting to place Hercule Poirot, during Chapter 4, one of them mentions the case retold in Mrs McGinty's Dead (1952). When Poirot comes to lecture to the students about his cases in the same chapter, he retells the story of The Nemean Lion, published in book form in The Labours of Hercules (1947). In chapter 5 Poirot also remembers Count Vera Rossakoff's "exotic splendour even in decay", something that he has only observed in The Capture of Cerberus, also from The Labours of Hercules. In Chapter 21, Poirot visits a solicitor by the name of Mr Endicott to confirm his suspicions of Nigel Chapman. Endicott says to Poirot, " I'm deeply in your debt. You cleared up that nasty Abernethy business for me." This may be a reference to the events in After the Funeral (1953), though Abernethie is mistakenly spelt "Abernethy" and not "Abernethie" as it is in After the Funeral. Furthermore, the catalyst to Poirot's direct involvement to the events in After the Funeral is a solicitor named Entwhistle, not Endicott.

In Chapter 11, Elizabeth Johnston refers to anti Communist “witch hunts” in America. The term was first used in its metaphorical sense in 1938, but its specific connection with McCarthyism dates from the first performance of Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible, in 1953. This implies that the setting of the novel is at most two years before its publication.