Probably no detective story in history has met with such instantaneous success as ["Curtain"]…. Poirot dead? It seems incredible. The little Belgian detective had been most active between 1900 and 1904; by 1920, when he appeared in Christie's first novel, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles," he was officially retired. And yet he went on to star in 40 of his author's 86 books—which is about as firm a grip on immortality as a literary man can get. For this reason, his death comes as an unexpected jolt. (p. 91)

"Curtain" is one of Christie's most ingenious stories, a tour de force in which the lady who had bent all the rules of the genre before bends them yet again. Like all her stories, it is scrupulously honest. In a detective story, as in an allegory, much that happens—the concrete details that provide an illusion of reality—actually points to something else, and in "Curtain" so many events are not quite what they seem that the reader may at the end feel as foolish as Hastings. To believe in the killer's motivation requires belief in some truly hokey psychology, but never mind: the credibility of the design, not the people, is what distinguishes the best of Christie's stories. (p. 92)

[Curtain is much] ado about very little. As almost everyone knows by now, this is Hercule Poirot's schwanenlied. His death turns out to be as silly as his life. This is better than recent Christies—which isn't saying a hell of a lot. Ms. Christie is one of the most over-rated writers of our time and her present phenomenal popularity simply proves that most readers cannot distinguish between mediocre and good suspense novels. Her one talent is intricate plotting but plot alone does not a novel make. (pp. 91-2)

The Critic (© The Critic 1975; reprinted with the permission of the Thomas More Association, Chicago, Illinois), Winter, 1975.