Hercule Poirot is intrigued by the story of a young couple, both friends of Captain Hastings, who managed to rent a comfy new flat for a surprisingly low price, despite the fact that the ad had been released to the papers quite some time ago. Meanwhile, Inspector Japp has to temporarily work with an American FBI agent who has come to London searching for a woman who stole the secret plans of a new US submarine model and may be planning to sell them to the Italian Embassy. Could these two cases be somehow connected?
One of the relatively few espionage tales of the "Poirot" series, "The Adventure of the Cheap Flat" has some hard-to-swallow points, most notably the fact that the female spy, wanted by the police and the Mafia on both sides of the Atlantic, would go back to doing the exact same profession she practiced in the US, instead of keeping a low profile. However, Jennifer Landor gives us one of the first true femme fatales of the series, not at the level of Jane Wilkinson from "Lord Edgware Dies", but still quite memorable, especially in a sequence set at a dock. Future Moneypenny and past Agatha Christie girl (in the Miss Marple mystery "A Murder Is Announced") Samantha Bond also has a small part. (***)
One of the relatively few espionage tales of the "Poirot" series, "The Adventure of the Cheap Flat" has some hard-to-swallow points, most notably the fact that the female spy, wanted by the police and the Mafia on both sides of the Atlantic, would go back to doing the exact same profession she practiced in the US, instead of keeping a low profile. However, Jennifer Landor gives us one of the first true femme fatales of the series, not at the level of Jane Wilkinson from "Lord Edgware Dies", but still quite memorable, especially in a sequence set at a dock. Future Moneypenny and past Agatha Christie girl (in the Miss Marple mystery "A Murder Is Announced") Samantha Bond also has a small part. (***)