Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Elephants Can Remember: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition
    Elephants Can Remember: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition
    Elephants Can Remember: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition
    Audiobook5 hours

    Elephants Can Remember: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition

    Written by Agatha Christie

    Narrated by Hugh Fraser

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    A classic Hercule Poirot investigation, Agatha Christie’s Elephants Can Remember has the expert detective delving into an unsolved crime from the past involving the strange death of a husband and wife.

    Hercule Poirot stood on the clifftop. Here, many years earlier, there had been a fatal accident followed by the grisly discovery of two bodies—a husband and wife who had been shot dead.

    But who had killed whom? Was it a suicide pact? A crime of passion? Or cold-blooded murder? Poirot delves into the past and discovers that “old sins leave long shadows.”

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJul 3, 2012
    ISBN9780062229786
    Author

    Agatha Christie

    Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in over 70 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 20 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.

    More audiobooks from Agatha Christie

    Related to Elephants Can Remember

    Titles in the series (44)

    View More
    View More

    Related audiobooks

    Mystery For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Book Lover

      Jun 29, 2021

      The Book Lover
      6 min read

    • Article

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Jul 12, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • Article

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Aug 9, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • Article

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Jul 12, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • Article

      Little House

      Jun 5, 2023

      On Monday nights our mother made popcorn and served it to us in mugs with milk poured over. My younger sister and I carried our mugs into the family room and ate the popcorn with spoons, like cereal. We were five and seven. Until we were allowed to s

      21 min read

    • Article

      Echoes

      Jun 22, 2022

      Echoes
      9 min read

    • Article

      Heave’s Whisky

      Feb 27, 2024

      Heave’s Whisky
      7 min read

    • Article

      The BRACELET

      Jan 30, 2024

      The BRACELET
      6 min read

    • Article

      Only a Fragrance

      Sep 1, 2022

      Only a Fragrance
      3 min read

    • Article

      Clean SWEEP

      Aug 31, 2022

      Clean SWEEP
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Alpaca EXPERIENCE

      May 25, 2021

      The Alpaca EXPERIENCE
      6 min read

    • Article

      Last Love

      Dec 8, 2023

      Last Love
      13 min read

    • Article

      The Man I Should Have Married

      Dec 29, 2019

      The Man I Should Have Married
      11 min read

    • Article

      Echoes

      Jun 29, 2022

      Echoes
      9 min read

    • Article

      Now Is the Time

      Nov 24, 2020

      Now Is the Time
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Wisdom of Women Shines in Najla Jraissaty Khoury’s ‘Pearls on a Branch: Oral Tales’

      Oct 22, 2018

      Long, long ago These things happened or maybe no. Let’s start with the image on the cover. Three women sit in a courtyard. One holds a long-handled pan over a coal brazier; the other two, one of whom has her back to us, hold small cups. They wear ide

      7 min read

    • Article

      I’m the One Who Survives: An Excerpt from ‘The Postcard’

      May 15, 2023

      I remember with cruel clarity the day when someone said to me—I was still only little—“Your family died in an oven.” The post I’m the One Who Survives: An Excerpt from ‘The Postcard’ appeared first on The Millions.

      9 min read

    • Article

      Changing ROOMS

      Sep 14, 2022

      Changing ROOMS
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Girl on THE MOON

      Mar 10, 2021

      The Girl on THE MOON
      8 min read

    • Article

      J. Jezewska Stevens

      Dec 15, 2017

      The party was a failure. I can’t even tell you what a failure it was. There are no words. Only a great pain in my chest when I wake up. On the veranda. It’s better when I sit in the chair. Oh, but then I can see around. The gauzy curtains, pushed by

      15 min read

    • Article

      Redux: Reading About Mom

      May 15, 2018

      Redux: Reading About Mom
      2 min read

    • Article

      Notes on Etiquette

      Mar 1, 2019

      Notes on Etiquette
      10 min read

    • Article

      Run, Baby, Run!

      Sep 25, 2023

      Run, Baby, Run!
      7 min read

    • Article

      Outfoxed By Mansfield

      Nov 13, 2023

      Outfoxed By Mansfield
      2 min read

    • Article

      Mummy, I Hardly Knew You

      Oct 20, 2021

      Mummy, I Hardly Knew You
      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Elephants Can Remember

    4/5

    205 ratings33 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      This is the worse of Mrs. Christie’s book I have read—and I love her books. Three or four chapters through the book I started wondering if Agatha Christie wrote it during a period of crisis in her life; or maybe she was considering quitting writing or was tired of Hercule Poirot… (Conan Doyle comes to mind!) I wonder what was going on in her life at that specific time. The dialogues are endlessly long and often times boring, repetitive, wooden. Poirot has very little of his charm—it comes back spasmodically, erratically. And the constant reference to elephants drove me nuts! Ariadne is the same from other books, but just way more long dialogues to her—more like monologues—when Poirot just injects a few monosyllables. It was relatively easy to extricate the plot at one point, but it was quite intelligent nevertheless.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 1/5
      In which Mrs. Oliver uncovers a long-dead murder, and Poirot sets out to solve it.

      The worst of the Poirot novels. There is a distinct drop in vocabulary and grammatical variety, consistent with old-age, in Christie’s final novels, and here she babbles on at length, reminiscing about things that have no bearing on the plot whatsoever. In fact, very little makes sense. The murder mystery isn’t wholly unbearable but it’s submerged beneath all of this silliness. Amazingly, even the usually reliable pairing of Poirot and Ariadne Oliver can’t salvage this. Mrs. Oliver had begun as a wry commentary on Agatha Christie’s own career, and had been utilised several times as a dynamic character – combining her love of amateur detectives with her gift for characters who could unsettle the exacting Poirot – and as a commentator on crime fiction as a genre. Here, she’s just a surrogate for the bemused Christie, still writing this Belgian detective decades after she tired of him. Unlike Arthur Conan Doyle, Christie considered her role as a storyteller to be more important than any kind of dispute with a fictional character, so refused to let go. Perhaps she should have.

      "Elephants" hasn’t been adapted by the David Suchet series, but if – God willing – the show returns for more, we should expect an adaptation. Good luck to them.

      Poirot ranking: 38th out of 38

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Ah Poirot! He teams up yet again with mystery authoress Mrs. Oliver to solve a years-old mystery, and does it admirably. Entertaining.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      Utterly obvious, and at the same time, utter claptrap. Melodramatic nonsense.
    • 3/5
      Waaay too obvious! But I adore Oliver and Poirots friendship, so it was worth it. “Third Girl” is way better, though.
    • 2/5
      I adore Christie, but this book sadly shows a loss of her trademark wit. The reader who is new to Agatha Christie should steer away from this one until they have read her earlier works.
    • 3/5
      Not the best of Agatha Christie, by a long shot, but still . . . it's an Agatha Christie, with the cozy trademark feel, and the quirky character of Ariadne Oliver, not to mention Poirot. Enjoy it for what it is--a lesser work by a great mystery writer--that's what I did.
    • 5/5
      Top notch narration, and a classic twisty mystery, as expected from Christie.
    • 5/5
      I absolutely loved this story! Pure entertainment. From beginning to end. The title is amazing and so amusing the way it’s repeated by Mrs. Oliver & Poirot.

      It has a very nice call back to “Five Little Pigs” which is another of my absolute favorites.

      I adore the solving of historical crimes as it’s such a challenge to figure out the mystery.
    • 3/5
      I did & I didn't.... Endless prattling supposition for the purpose of confounding the reader not only bores me, but annoys the hell out of me.Mrs. Ariadne Oliver attends a Literary Luncheon where she is guest speaker. After the luncheon she is accosted by a nasty woman who insists that Mrs. Oliver look into the deaths of Mrs. Oliver's goddaughter Celia's parents, an apparent double suicide to determine exactly whom shot whom.... for the purpose of determining the possible mental health of Ceila who is long-time childhood friends with the woman's adopted son.Ceila's aunt, her mother's twin, has long been in & out of mental institutions for murdering young male children...Celia was away in Switzerland when her parents died, but there were others in the house, now elderly & retired ( Elephants) who remember bits & pieces of what went on.M. Poirot is brought into the investigation for his relationship w/ the police.I pretty figured out what actually happened, but not the overly sentimental & pseudo-romantic reasoning (which ruined the ending for me).
    • 3/5
      My second Christie after Crooked House. I thank her for helping me to get into the reading world. Always, hence, a good book.
    • 4/5
      A DIFFERENT EMOTION TO AMAZING MASTERPIECE COLLECTION OF AGATHA CHRISTIE!!!!
    • 3/5
      Poirot's objective in this book is to uncover the truth of a crime that happened in the past. By asking questions and using his usual process of thinking, Poirot discovers the truth in the crime.

      While not predictable from the beginning, I found this book to be the only one of Christie's that I've read so far that I've been able to guess the ending of. Still a good mystery and the answers that everyone seek are not what they expect.
    • 3/5
      If you have read a lot of Agatha Christie, you will know that it is usually the portly Belgian detective Hercule Poirot who does all of the sleuthing but in this particular cold case, his good friend and celebrated author Ariadne Oliver takes charge. Some nosey old biddy comes up to Ariadne at a literary luncheon and starts asking about an apparent double suicide that occurred decades ago.I’m personally not sure what to think about this book. Ariadne Oliver has always been a fun character; I assume she is a parody of the author Agatha Christie in real life. Her character was certainly the best part of the novel; the other characters seemed dull and very much the same as one another. Even Poirot himself (his dialogue at least) was beginning to blend in to the cast of elderly British ladies present. He seemed to have lost his usual foreign mannerisms that make him so unique.As well as the characters, I’m also in two minds about the plot. Initially I was taken in as with every other Christie novel but around halfway through I worked out the remainder of the plot completely (don’t let this put you off Christie novels, this is the first and probably the only time I’ve worked out the solution by myself). However, I was nearly shaken from my theory once or twice by a few of those red herrings Christie is famous for.Overall, I would say that this is a sub-par Christie. The characters were a little dull, the plot was unusually simple and Poirot seemed to morph into an old woman. However, the atmosphere, if a little subdued, was still there and Ariadne’s role in the story was, as always, good fun. Recommended for completists and dedicated Agatha Christie fans.
    • 2/5
      When Mrs Oliver's god-daughter needs to know whether her father killed her mother or her mother killed her father, Poirot must investigate the 20-year-earlier deaths of the couple. Just enough misdirection to make the story interesting, although it seems to be more about Mrs Oliver and her work and relationships than it does about the mystery itself.
    • 2/5
      A Poirot mystery rather spoiled by lengthy ramblings from a friend of his (a crime writer). Clever plot with unexpected twists, but too rambling and long-winded for my tastes.
    • 3/5
      I was intrigued by this case, and I had some idea of who the killer or killers were by the end. It is definitely one of the classic Poirot mysteries.
    • 4/5
      A late work from Christie, among her very last. As a mystery the work is perfectly fine. In style it lacks the glamour and panache that characterize her works from the 30s and 40s.
    • 2/5
      A trivial effort by Agatha Christie. The solution was obvious about halfway through the book and the young lovers were tedious. Mrs. Oliver, an elderly writer of successful mystery novels brings the mystery and Hercule Poirot together. The book is improved somewhat by Mrs. Oliver's reflections on life as a mystery writer and by some of the interviews that she conducts. It was written in the 1970s and refers to pop stars and long hair.
    • 1/5
      Worst mystery ever? Worst Agatha Christie book? Worst post-modernism? Worst book about having tea with people? Spoiler: they were twins!!
    • 4/5
      A classic little stroll through Poirot-land, with Mrs. Oliver leading the way through a re-investigation of an old suicide. I guessed way before the end what the situation had been and was rewarded by a precise confirmation, but it was a fun read.
    • 3/5
      This was a case where Poirot gets to dive into the past for his friend Mrs. Oliver. Mrs Oliver is approached by an 'Odious' women and asked about a event that had happened many years ago, wanting to know some specific insider information. Mrs Oliver is loath to give the woman any help in the matter but her interest is piqued and so she asks her friend Hercules Poirot for a hand in the matter.I wasn't real impressed with this one, it seemed that it went into many long rambling parts that could have been a little shorter. This is also possible that I have been reading to many Agatha Christie's of late and need to move on to someone else for awhile. Overall not bad, good clues and a fun read.
    • 4/5
      It's an interesting subgenre of the English mystery, where the protagonist must uncover clues to solve a mystery or murder that happened in the past. ("Long past?" asked Scrooge. "No," returned the ghost. "Your past.") Generally it relates to the present-day characters - other examples might be Ambler's Coffin For Demetrios or Sayers' Nine Tailors - but really historical mysteries come along occasionally too. It's generally not a particularly thrilling genre, but sometimes the past does prefer not to be unburied and comes buzzing back for revenge on its tormentors. Not in Elephants, though - it's a quiet little read with a peaceful puzzle. But yes, the identical twin sisters are a bit hackneyed even for 1972.
    • 5/5
      Not Christies best, the solution is apparent very early. Hugh Frasier though is magnificent and I rate this audio book upon that.
    • 3/5
      Slightly confused plot which again has Poirot investigating a past incident - here a potential double suicide, or murder/suicide - in the hope of finding out just what happened, which, of course, he does. Mrs Oliver ably assists.
    • 2/5
      Elephants Can Remember is a sad read. It's not just that the subject matter of this very late Poirot/Ariadne Oliver novel is so inherently tragic, it's more the spectacle of the decline of Agatha Christie's skills as a writer displayed on page after page. It's like watching Muhammed Ali at the end of his boxing career -- all the old sparkle and snap are gone, and you'd rather it all had ended in a more dignified way.I'll not belabor this review with a laundry list of this book's faults, other than to say that it's remarkably repetitious, and that the dialog is very bad indeed. Even the inimitable Poirot loses his voice here; he sounds more like an aging upper class British lady than a Belgian private eye.The one point I can recommend is that at least this novel improves at about two-thirds of the way through. If you can bear with it that far, at least a shadow of Christie's former brilliance is in evidence.Recommended only to Christie fans looking to complete their tour of the corpus.
    • 3/5
      Hercule Poirot must dig deep into the past to solve a crime (or was it?) over a decade old.I don't think this is the best story Christie wrote, but it suited me at the moment. It is quite repetitive, sentimental at the end, not a difficult mystery to solve, and the timeline and people involved are confusing. Yet somehow it was still a comfort read because I enjoy spending time with Mrs. Oliver and Hercule Poirot.
    • 4/5
      The story begins with Hercule Poirot's writer-friend, Ariadne Oliver, attending a literary luncheon. A woman approaches Mrs Oliver to ask her about the parents of Ariadne's god-daughter Celia Ravenscroft. She wants to know which of Celia's parents killed the other.Ariadne Oliver takes the problem to her old friend Hercule Poirot who ferrets out the answer.He thinks it is a problem worth solving and so they both begin their own line of enquiry. Mrs Oliver tracks down old friends who might remember the incident at the time, and Poirot consults some professionals, in particular ex-Superintendent Spence and Mr Goby.The novel explores the nature of collective memory, particularly when some people are under the impression they've learnt facts, but in actual fact what they "know" is hearsay, second hand information. And little by little Poirot uncovers what actually happened.I don't really think I have read this novel before, but I actually managed to solve the puzzle a little ahead of Poirot. It is a mystery tinged with romance, a teasing out of the nature of love. I think Christie was desperate to get some ideas across, like whether a woman was likely to kill her husband and then kill herself.In terms of her writing life, this is the second last novel that Christie ever wrote. I was particularly interested to find out whether she still had her writing powers. Agatha Christie (1890 - 1976) was after all 82 years old when this was published. It is the last Poirot she wrote (although not the last published).For the most part the novel is well plotted and the characters are interestingly drawn. But the ending is a bit flat, almost like an amateur theatrical performance where the actors wave their goodbyes.
    • 4/5
      I am on an Agatha Christie run right now. This book is a Hercule Poirot mystery. This is a story of a woman,Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, that is approached while at a literary luncheon by some one unknown to her, Mrs. Burton-Cox, about Mrs. Oliver's goddaughter's parents deaths fifteen years earlier. Mrs. Burton-Cox is curious to learn the truth about the murder/suicide of Celia Ravenscroft's parents.This was a different type of mystery that was interesting to follow. You already know who the victims are you are just trying to learn who was killed first. Who was the actual person to murder and then commit suicide. Mrs. Burton-Cox is concerned because her son and Celia are planning to get married. She doesn't want her son marrying some one who may decide to kill her son. As the story progresses you start to feel that there is an underlying reason for Mrs. Burton-Cox's true concerns.
    • 3/5
      2.5 StarsThis is not Christie's best work. Here she teams two memorable characters – Hercule Poirot and Mrs Ariadne Oliver to investigate a decades-old mystery. Did General Ravenscroft kill his wife and them himself, or did Lady Ravenscroft shoot her husband before committing suicide? Their daughter wants some answers, and she asks her godmother, Mrs Oliver, to try to find the truth for her. The audio version is narrated quite capably by John Moffatt.I have a hardback of this book (because of my elephant collection), but I don’t remember ever reading it before.