It starts with a remark so casual you might miss it. At the reading of Richard Abernethie’s will, his sister Cora Lansquenet blithely asks, "It's been hushed up very nicely, hasn't it? But he was murdered, wasn't he?"
That is the hook. It's sharp. It's uncomfortable.
After the Funeral Agatha Christie at her most cynical and, honestly, her most brilliant. Published in 1953, this isn't the cozy, tea-and-scones mystery many people associate with the Golden Age. It’s a claustrophobic study of greed, family rot, and the desperate lengths people go to when they've spent their lives waiting for someone else to die. If you’ve only seen the adaptations—like the Margaret Rutherford version where they weirdly swapped out Hercule Poirot for Miss Marple—you’re missing the sheer psychological weight of the original text.
The Setup: A Death and a Disastrous Comment
Richard Abernethie dies suddenly. To the world, it’s just a rich old man’s heart giving out at his estate, Enderby Hall. But Cora, the "flighty" sister who has been the family embarrassment for years, drops her bombshell during the post-funeral gathering.
The next day, Cora is found dead. Brutally murdered with a hatchet.
Suddenly, her "silly" question looks like a death sentence. Entrusted with the fallout, the family lawyer, Mr. Entwhistle, realizes he’s out of his depth. He turns to the only man who can navigate the murky waters of family lies: Hercule Poirot. By 1953, Christie’s Poirot was different. He was older. He was quieter. He was weary of the human capacity for cruelty but still sharp enough to catch the tiniest flicker of a lie.
The genius of the plot lies in its simplicity. If Richard was murdered, who benefited? If Cora was murdered for what she knew, what exactly did she see?
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Why the Characters Feel Uncomfortably Real
Christie was often accused of using "cardboard" characters, but in After the Funeral, she paints with a much darker brush. These aren't just suspects; they are people drowning in their own failures.
Take Timothy and Maude. Timothy is a classic malingerer, a man who has weaponized his "poor health" to avoid responsibility for decades. Then there’s Rosamund, a beautiful, somewhat vacuous actress who views her uncle’s death primarily through the lens of how it can fund her next theatrical venture. You also have Helen, the sensible widow of another brother, who is perhaps the only person in the room with a shred of genuine dignity.
The tension isn't just about "who did it." It’s about the fact that none of them really liked each other. They are bound by blood and bank accounts, and that's it.
Christie uses the post-WWII setting perfectly here. The British aristocracy is crumbling. Taxes are high. Large estates like Enderby are becoming liabilities rather than assets. This creates a "pressure cooker" environment. In the 1930s, an Abernethie might have killed for a diamond necklace; in 1953, they’re killing because they’re terrified of being poor in a world that no longer respects their name.
The "Cora Problem" and Christie's Greatest Trick
Let’s talk about the misdirection. Without giving away the ending for the three people left on earth who haven't read it, the "trick" in After the Funeral Agatha Christie relies on something we all do: we make assumptions based on performance.
Cora Lansquenet was an amateur painter. She was considered "slow" or "eccentric" by her more sophisticated relatives. Christie gambles on the reader—and the characters—dismissing Cora. We treat her as a plot device rather than a person. When Poirot starts investigating her life in her cluttered little cottage, he finds the clues that everyone else ignored because they couldn't be bothered to look at her "dreadful" art.
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It's a masterclass in the "unreliable witness" trope, but it’s played out through the eyes of the entire family.
A Note on the Adaptations (And Why They Often Fail)
If you’re a purist, the 1963 film Murder at the Gallop might give you a headache. It replaces Poirot with Margaret Rutherford's Miss Marple and turns a grim psychological thriller into a lighthearted romp. It’s a fun movie, sure. But it’s not After the Funeral.
The 2005 David Suchet adaptation for Agatha Christie's Poirot is much closer to the bone. It captures the decaying grandeur of the era and the genuine chill of the hatchet murder. Michael Fassbender even shows up in an early role! But even the best TV version can’t quite capture Poirot’s internal monologue as he realizes that the motive for the crime is both more complex and more pathetic than he initially thought.
What Most People Miss About the Motive
Usually, in a Christie novel, the motive is simple: Money. Love. Revenge.
In this book, it’s more about identity.
The killer isn't just trying to get rich; they are trying to escape the person they have become. This is a recurring theme in Christie’s later works. She stopped caring as much about the "how" (the clock timetables and the locked rooms) and started focusing on the "why."
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After the Funeral is also one of the best examples of Christie’s "stagecraft." She treats the funeral and the subsequent meetings like scenes in a play. She knows exactly where to place a character so they overhear just enough to be suspicious, but not enough to be certain.
Essential Insights for the Modern Reader
If you’re picking this up for the first time, or revisiting it after years, keep these points in mind:
- Watch the Mirror: Christie uses reflections—both literal and metaphorical—throughout the book. Pay attention to how characters see themselves versus how others see them.
- The Art Clues: Don't ignore the descriptions of the paintings. Christie wasn't an art critic, but she knew how to use a physical object to signify a psychological state.
- The Timeline: Richard’s death and Cora’s death are separated by barely twenty-four hours. The speed of the second murder suggests desperation, not a long-simmering plan.
- The Post-War Gloom: Understand that in 1953, England was still under rationing in some ways and the social hierarchy was flipping upside down. That anxiety permeates every page.
Actionable Next Steps for Christie Fans
To truly appreciate the depth of After the Funeral, you shouldn't just read the book in a vacuum.
First, compare it to Hercule Poirot's Christmas. Both involve a wealthy patriarch dying and a fractured family coming together, but the tone is night and day. Christmas is a gory, almost theatrical puzzle; After the Funeral is a quiet, devastating tragedy.
Second, look into the real-world history of "Death Duties" (inheritance tax) in the UK during the early 1950s. It sounds boring, but it is the "invisible antagonist" of the novel. It explains why the characters are so desperate—they aren't just greedy; they are facing the total loss of their social standing.
Finally, read the book specifically looking at the dialogue of the servants and the lawyer. Christie often hid the truth in the mouths of the "background" characters because she knew the readers would be too focused on the dramatic family members to notice.
After the Funeral Agatha Christie remains a top-tier entry in the canon because it refuses to give the reader a "happy" ending. Yes, the killer is caught. Yes, Poirot explains it all. But the Abernethie family is still broken, the house is still cold, and the world is still moving on without them. It's a haunting, perfect piece of mid-century crime fiction.
For those looking to dive deeper into the Poirot timeline, your next read should be Hallowe'en Party or Third Girl. These later novels carry that same sense of a changing world where the old rules of "fair play" no longer seem to apply, and the shadows are just a little bit longer than they used to be.