Triangle at Rhodes

Poirot on holiday is never Poirot at rest, and Rhodes proves the point. The sun-drenched island and the hotel look like escape, and then an enchanting beauty called Valentine Chantry is fatally poisoned and the holiday snaps shut around the guests like a trap. The enchantment in question is the kind that attracts trouble.

The title points at the geometry of the thing. Commander Chantry and his wife Valentine are at the centre of it, Douglas Gold and Marjorie Gold circle them, and Major Barnes watches it all with the air of a man keeping score. The couples' friendship is a matter of public record, which makes it a matter of suspicion. And suspicion spreads through the group until nobody's small talk is innocent. Poison among sunbathers is a very Christie idea, and Poirot works through the social tangle one careful question at a time, with a hotel manager hovering politely in the background. The hotel guests share the pool and the dining room, and they hold strong opinions about one another.

Stephen Wakelam and Agatha Christie wrote it, Renny Rye directed. It went out on 12 February 1989. Frances Low plays Pamela Lyall, Jon Cartwright is Commander Chantry, Annie Lambert plays Valentine Chantry, Peter Settelen is Douglas Gold, Angela Down plays Marjorie Gold and Timothy Kightley is Major Barnes, with Al Fiorentini as a police inspector, Anthony Benson as Skelton and Patrick Monckton as the hotel manager. David Suchet is Poirot throughout, and the resort never looks quite so sunny again.

A murder mystery needs a closed circle, and a hotel full of holidaymakers is one of the best there is. Everyone has an alibi and everyone has a secret involving someone else's spouse. What looks like leisure is really a set of alibis on parade, and Poirot sorts the lot of them out before the holiday is over. The heat makes everyone careless, and carelessness is a detective's best friend.