Plot holes and other concerns

monamis

I've just finished reading "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" and although I thoroughly enjoyed the story, I have some concerns.
One thing that bothered be throughout the book, and I hoped would be explained but wasn't, is the fact that no-one heard the gunshot. A dentist was shot at his place of work in the middle of the day with his place of business full of people, yet the discovery of the body was a surprise. Why wasn't the gunshot heard?
Also, the blackmail plot by the Greek gentleman couldn't have been known by the reader until Poirot explained this near the end; and how did Poirot possibly work this part out?
Similarly, why would Poirot entertain the idea that Alistair Blunt was a bigamist? Did I miss something or are we to assume that Poirot's lateral thinking leads him always to the facts?
I love AC, I just wonder if sometimes she could have given further explanation to certain points.

gerryO

Having recently discovered that my favourite AC book, Roger Ackroyd, has been abridged and altered over the years (see previous discussion), I now wonder if this has happened to her other books.  Her plots have always seemed so well laid out, with clues appropriately placed.  Perhaps it's better not to read them again after a long time.

Tommy_A_Jones

You have to allow for somethings to just be, I can only assume that people are too busy going about their daily life the Gunshot wasn't heard with the Blackmail plot, that is the only possible reason for his death I think and lastly I think there were 2 contradictory accounts for Mirs Sainsbury Seal I think, SPOILER! someone new one who didn't look like the other so they must be 2 different people both married to Blunt, I think those are the explanations anyway.

I have never thought that newer editions were abridged versions.

Can I remind you Monamis when askng about something f you are going to mention details remember spoiler warnings  

GKCfan

(SPOILER WARNING)

In the Suchet adaptation, the fatal shot is silenced.  I can't remember if there's a fleeting reference to a silencer in the original book.  Some of the newer editions are abridged for content– in And Then There Were None, for example, in the original text there are numerous lines where Lombard expresses racist or anti-Jewish sentiments, illustrating that he is NOT the standard Christie hero.  Most of these comments have been cut in recent editions.

shifra.shomron

As for the shot:
"Nobody seems to have heard the shot. But I don't think they would. There are two doors between here and the passage and they have baize fitted round the edges - to deaden the noise from the victims of the dental chair, I imagine... and outside, in the street, there's plenty of traffic, so you wouldn't be likely to hear it out there." (pp 21-2).

As for Hercule Poirot realizing that Blunt was a bigamist, that's also very carefully explained: delving into the character of Miss Sainsbury Seale, who claims to have known Blunt's wife. Which makes Blunt's wife someone Seale could have met "someone in her own station of life. An Anglo-Indian - a missionary - or, to go back further still - an actress - Therefore - not Rebecca Arnholt!. . . I am suggesting that when you married Rebecca Arnholt, you were married already." (p.231)

So, @GKCfan, I don't think it's a question of the book being abridged. I think Agatha Christie does show us how the solution is arrived at, and what Poirot's thought process is - it's just unfortunate for us, that we aren't half so clever...
In the Berkley books that I have, all the racist comments are still in the text, providing for a slightly less pleasant, but an authentic, reading experience.