History Literature / CardsOnTheTable

The book was made into a stage play in 1981, and adapted for the TV series ''Series/{{Poirot}}'' in 2005, the latter of which strayed considerably from the original story. Tropes for the 2005 adaptation are listed on [[Series/{{Poirot}} the page for the TV series]].

''Cards on the Table'' is an Creator/AgathaChristie detective fiction murder mystery first published in 1936. The mysterious Mr Shaitana, who boasts of being a "collector of murderers", hosts a dinner party to which he invites four "specimens" of his collection along with the famous Belgian detective Literature/HerculePoirot, crime novelist Ariadne Oliver, Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard, and Secret Service man Colonel Race. After some provocative discourse on the subject of murder, Shaitana invites his eight guests to play {{TabletopGame/Bridge}}, while he retires to his armchair by the fire, where he is promptly murdered. In investigating the murder, Poirot uncovers some dark secrets in the lives of all four suspects.

* NotWhatItLooksLike: It turns out [[spoiler:Mrs Lorrimer]] caught a glimpse of [[spoiler:Anne Meredith]] hovering suspiciously over Mr Shaitana in his chair. [[spoiler:This ends up being the reason why Mrs Lorrimer falsely confesses to killing Shaitana herself, to protect a young girl with her whole life ahead of her who was forced into what Mrs Lorrimer saw as justifiable homicide. Shaitana, however, had actually already been stabbed at the time, and the reason Anne hesitated to speak up was not because she'd killed him, but out of fear that suspicion would come to rest on her based on the murder Shaitana had implied she'd committed over dinner.]]

* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: PlayedForLaughs during the SecretTestOfCharacter described below. Poirot buys many pairs of fine silk stockings and asks Anne Meredith to help him choose which ones to send to some (fictitious) relatives as presents. The stockings are arranged in a huge, messy heap on a table in his flat--and the narration remarks that this is obviously a scheme, because Poirot's ObsessivelyOrganized would ''never'' allow for such disorder in his perfectly-arranged living space.

* CoolOldLady: Mrs. Lorrimer, though she's closer to middle-age than most examples of this trope. She's described as calm, collected, and exceptionally intelligent, able to easily converse with Poirot about everything from recent plays to geopolitics. She's also [[spoiler: the only one of the four murderers to leave behind absolutely no evidence of her own crime, and never cracks or even attempts to justify why she did it. That, plus the fact that she's willing to take the blame for Shaitana's death to protect Anne Meredith, impresses the not-easily-impressed Poirot, and he calls her a WorthyOpponent for her strong character.]]

* ExplainExplainOhCrap: Played with when Rhoda and Anne discuss are discussing the latter's [[spoiler: tenure with Mrs. Benson, which Anne had conveniently "forgotten" to mention to the police]]. Anne, already on edge, remarks that it's not a big deal: "No one knows but you!...no one knows...but ''you.''" [[spoiler: Since Anne killed Mrs. Benson, it means that Rhoda just made herself a prime target for murder.]]

* FaceDeathWithDignity: [[spoiler: Mrs. Lorrimer]] receives a diagnosis of a terminal illness in the middle of the novel, but does not panic in the slightest, instead stoically accepting the news and preparing to die quietly. [[spoiler: This diagnosis is part of what motivates her to confess to Shaitana's murder and save Anne: since she is already not long for the world, she might as well go protecting someone.]]

* GentlemanAdventurer: Major Despard, a soldier, hunter, and wilderness guide in DarkestAfrica, described as dashing in the text -- but also one of Shaitana's murderers. [[spoiler: Since it turns out that said murder was actually a genuine accident, the trope is only fully realized by the book's end.]]

* MamaBear: [[spoiler: Mrs. Lorrimer ends up developing a strong motherly fondness for Anne Meredith, and decides to falsely confess to Shaitana's murder to protect the younger woman.]]

* NoodleIncident: [[spoiler: Exactly why and how Mrs. Lorrimer killed her husband is never elaborated upon; all we know is that she did it and, by process of elimination during Mr. Shaitana's speech about four methods of committing murder, used some kind of poison. It's particularly jarring because much of the book is dedicated to figuring out the criminal pasts of Anne Meredith, Dr. Roberts, and Major Despard.]]

* SummationGathering: Played with in that it seems that Poirot is simply giving an after-action report on Anne Meredith's murders to the other interested parties. His talk veers straight into a summation gathering when he tells [[spoiler: Dr. Roberts, to his face, that he killed Shaitana and Mrs. Lorrimer as well as the two people he was accused of murdering in the past.]]

* TakingTheHeat: [[spoiler: Mrs. Lorrimer, believing that Anne is the killer, decides to confess to the crime herself. Shaitana was a jerkass who deserved to be murdered, and Mrs. Lorrimer is terminally ill, so she tries to take the rap to save young Anne.]]

** The exact nature of [[spoiler: Mrs. Lorrimer's fatal illness is never made clear. All she says is "I shall not play very much more bridge, Monsieur Poirot" and remarks that she's been given a few months to live at most.]]