Taken at the Flood is a detective novel by Agatha Christie published in 1948.
World War II is over. Lynn Marchmont has returned to her home town after serving as a Wren and gets engaged to her cousin Rowland. Her family life won't be dull yet though, as the wealthy family patriarch Gordon Cloade died in a German air raid. As he never made a new will, his entire fortune will now go to his young widow Rosaleen - the rest of the family won't get a single penny. But if something were to happen to Rosaleen...
The novel was adapted in 2006 for ITV's Poirot, starring David Suchet. Tropes for the adaptation can be found here.
Taken at the Flood contains examples of:
- Accidental Murder: How Charles Trenton, the first victim, really died: Rowley punched him and he fell over and hit his head.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Lynn's attraction to David Hunter has a lot to do with this trope, especially when compared to her stale romance with Rowley. In the end, she realizes that she actually loves Rowley when he tries to strangle her in a jealous fit.
- Betty and Veronica: Lynn is engaged to her boring cousin Rowley, but becomes smitten with the charming crook David. She decides to marry David, but then it turns out that both men are guilty of killing someone. Since Rowley's crime was only manslaughter, he's the one she ends up with.
- Big Brother Instinct: David is fiercely protective of his sister. That she isn't actually his sister is a fairly obvious twist that even other characters can see. That she isn't actually Rosaleen is the unexepected one.
- The Bore: The first sentence of the novel is "In every club there is a club bore." It's Major Porter, who at the Coronation Club tells a story about Robert Underhay maybe not being dead that nobody cares about—except, that is, for Jeremy Cloade who happens to be there.
- Bowdlerise: Even though it's clearly a reflection of the character's bigotry, and not the author's, the cranky old lady's complaint about "n***rs" is rewritten in modern editions.
- Central Theme: England's rough period of adjustment after World War II. Agatha Christie was of a conservative political bent, so much is made of high taxes making things difficult for rich folks like the Cloades. Besides that there's a lot of talk about the rapid pace of change, and the difficulty of people who served in the war (Lynn, who was a Wren, and David who was with Special Forces) to reintegrate themselves in British domestic life, or how pensioners like Major Porter are struggling with inflation.
- Clueless Mystery: The big plot twist, that "Rosaleen Cloade" was actually an impostor, a maid named Eileen Corrigan, comes completely out of nowhere.
- Conspicuous Consumption: Zigzagged. Lynn looks through her mother's bills and sees that while they are quite high, none of them are really extravagant or unnecessary. However, as soon as they're paid off her mother considers hiring another gardener.
- Dead Person Impersonation: The real Rosaleen turns out to be dead, killed in the blast, and the woman present is just a maid who survived and who David convinced to pose as Rosaleen to get the family money.
- Charles Trenton as "Enoch Arden", the alias Robert Underhay said he would use, though he doesn't explicitly claim to be Underhay.
- Death by Falling Over: How "Enoch Arden" died. Rowley punched him, and he fell over and hit the back of his head on a marble fireplace.
- Disguised in Drag: David disguises himself as a woman after walking in on a crime scene staged to incriminate him. He puts on makeup and female clothing, and then stages a two-person conversation to create a fake female suspect.
- Disposable Fiancé: Rowley is presented as a dull but stable option for Lynn. Their engagement is broken off when she falls for the more interesting David. Subverted in the end, when she goes back to Rowley after he proves to be less dull after all, what with the attempted murder and manslaughter.
- Distant Prologue: The opening scene at the gentlemen's club takes place in 1944, while the rest of the story takes place two years later, when Lynn Marchmont comes home to find out just how broke her in-laws the Cloades are.
- Driven to Suicide: Surprisingly, the suicide actually is a suicide. Major Porter, riven with guilt over perjuring himself in a case that has gotten an innocent man charged with murder, shoots himself. The other suicide, however...
- Easily Forgiven: Lynn forgives Rowley for accidentally killing a man and trying to strangle her. In fact, she seems to be more interested in him than ever.
- Fighting Irish: David's own justification for why he, an Irishman, volunteered to serve in the British army in the war: "But like all the Irish, I like fighting."
- Framing the Guilty Party: An interesting take on it. Rowley frames David for an Accidental Murder. At this point David is only guilty of fraud, but he eventually does commit a murder. In other words, Rowley framed the guilty party before they were actually guilty.
- Girls with Moustaches: The old lady at the inn is a horribly offensive Racist Grandma who is further marked out as antagonistic by having "a flourishing moustache." She also turns out to be a key witness.
- Gold Digger: Major Porter calls Rosaleen a "gold digger" for marrying his friend Gordon Cloade. His dislike of Rosaleen proves crucial to the plot.
- Graceful Loser: The murderer, when caught, waives the right to remain silent and confesses, only saying it's been "a damned good run".
- If I Can't Have You…: Rowley says this when he finds out about Lynn and David's engagement, and tries to strangle her in a fit of rage. Despite how bad this looks, Lynn takes this as a sign that he really does care for her and they get back together. It helps that he is only guilty of manslaughter.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: How Poirot belatedly caught on to how Rowley and Major Porter were in cahoots. Major Porter offered Poirot a cigarette but knew that Rowley didn't smoke, which he should not have known if it was their first meeting.
- Inheritance Murder: An interesting variation on the theme. Rosaleen was married to Robert Underhay, and after his death married Gordon Cloade, which made her Gordon's inheritor and invalidated Gordon's previous will. Then Enoch Arden appears and implies that Underhay is still alive, meaning that Rosaleen's marriage was bigamous and Robert's money goes instead to his next of kin. Enoch's murder both prevents one inheritance, and ensures another. After that, Rosaleen is worried that she will be murdered so her money will go to the Cloades. She is murdered, but not exactly for that reason.
- I Will Wait for You: Lynn declares that, even if Rowley is convicted of manslaughter, she will still wait for him until he gets out of prison.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: The plot is kicked off because Robert Underhay knew that his wife wanted to leave him, but as a Roman Catholic, did not believe in divorce. So he arranged to fake his death in Africa so she would be free to marry again, this time to Gordon Cloade. Things get complicated when somebody shows up and claims that Underhay isn't actually dead.
- Just Plane Wrong: Gordon Cloade was killed in a German bombing raid, but the cover pictured above shows Avro Lancasters of the Royal Air Force.
- Karma Houdini:
- It's implied that Rowley will get away with manslaughter in the end, but it is made clear that, unlike the actual murderer, he feels genuinely remorseful.
- Similarly, the reason Jeremy Cloade needed money was that he'd been Stealing from the Till (or rather, his clients' trust funds), and there's no indication of his being pursued over this.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: David Hunter runs off when Poirot gives the proof behind the murders, but later surrenders to the police without a fight, admitting that luck has run out and there is no point in resisting any further.
- Let Off by the Detective: Rowley is not strictly a murderer, really, but he's certainly guilty of involuntary manslaughter after he punched Charles Trenton and Trenton fell over and died. He also conspired to suborn perjury, to commit fraud to deprive Rosaleen of the Cloade fortune, and to frame David for Trenton's murder, both by planting evidence (the lighter and the watch) and bashing the freshly dead Charles's head in with the poker. He also committed assault and battery on Lynn while in a jealous rage, trying to strangle her, and he probably would have strangled her if Poirot hadn't shown up Just in Time. Poirot lets all that go at the end.
- Malignant Plot Tumor: There's the murder plot, and then there’s the Lynn-David-Rowley Love Triangle. By the end, Rowley is seemingly unmasked as the murderer when he finds out that Lynn has chosen David over him, but he turns out to be guilty of manslaughter only. David then turns out to be the other killer, with the motive being marrying Lynn.
- Meaningful Name: "Enoch Arden" is the name of a poem written in 1864 by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The titular character is a mariner, shipwrecked and stranded on a desert island, who doesn't return home for eleven and a half years. In the meantime, his wife has mourned him as dead and married another man, and Enoch decides not to interfere, because he sees that she has moved on from him and is happy. Robert Underhay clearly chose this name deliberately, as he appears to enact such a plan. In fact, several jurisdictions now have an "Enoch Arden doctrine" that allows a person to legally remarry if their spouse is absent without explanation for a period of years.
- Motive = Conclusive Evidence: Inverted. Poirot remarks on the irony that the Cloade family had the greatest motive to want Rosaleen dead, but the person who did kill her had the least motive to do so.
- Never One Murder: Rosaleen turns up dead towards the end. She was killed by her brother David, who wasn't her brother, because she wasn't really Rosaleen.
- Never Suicide: Zig-Zagged. There are three deaths in the story, and two are seemingly suicides at first glance. The death of Major Porter was a suicide (Rowley took the suicide note) as a result of the guilt over giving false testimony. "Enoch Arden"'s death was an accident during a fight with Rowley. The death of Rosaleen was murder, however, and her suicide note was fake.
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Rosaleen continuously mentions that her keeping her dead husband's money away from his family isn't right, but is reassured that it's legally her money. In fact it isn't her money in the first place, as she's only acting the part of Rosaleen.
- Obfuscating Postmortem Wounds: Rowley accidentally killed Charles Trenton when he punched Charles, followed by Charles suffering Death by Falling Over. Rowley, rapidly improvising, then bashes the newly dead Charles's head in with a poker in an effort to frame David.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Poirot remarks on how readily David Hunter appears to be willing to give in to blackmail, as he's the sort of clever and dangerous man would wouldn't pay. It's his first hint that something about it doesn't make sense.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Lynn is startled when Aunt Katherine appears at her side out of nowhere.She had a trick of seeming to materialize out of space.
- Racist Grandma: The old lady at the inn, who sees Poirot in the guest lounge and goes on a horribly offensive rant about how foreigners should go back to where they came from, and how British teenaged girls are getting knocked up by "Americans! N***rs! Polish riffraff!"
- Red Herring: Most of the confusion in the investigation comes from the fact that there doesn’t seem to be a motive for killing all the victims. Or rather, there are very clear motives for some people, but none of them could have committed the murders. As turns out, the first death was an accident while the second was a genuine suicide. Only the third and final death was a murder, with a very simple motive.
- Returning War Vet: Lynn Marchmont joined up with the Wrens (the Women's Auxiliary of the Royal Navy) and travelled widely, enduring hardship and coming close to combat several times. Returning to her fiancé Rowley, a rather plain man who spent the whole war as a farmer, seems like a letdown to her.
- David Hunter was in Special Forces or a Commando unit, and learned quite a bit about fighting dirty. It's even mentioned in the story that he's the sort of man who you'd love to have by your side in a fight, but whom you'd best keep a close watch on when the war's over.
- Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: Poirot remarks that all of the Cloades wished Rosaleen dead, consciously or unconsciously, because they had grown up dependent on Gordon Cloades's money, assumed they would inherit it when he died, and never made plans for a future where they wouldn't. His sudden remarriage before his death left all of them without prospects. Rowley shamefacedly admits that he thought of killing Rosaleen on the day she visited his farm, even if he didn't act on it.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: David and Lynn try to be civil about the situation between their families, but quickly end up sniping at each other from the moment they first meet. The relationship finally turns romantic when he plants one on her in the middle of an argument.
- Stopped Clock: A broken watch is found with the body of Enoch Arden that seems to fix the time of the murder, but even the local cops are genre savvy enough to realize that it's probably a trick. It is.
- Suicide is Shameful: Lynn refers to Major Porter as weak, while trying to comfort Rowley from his guilt over causing Porter's suicide.
- Summation Gathering: More or less, although unlike many of Christie's books only three of the characters are present.Poirot: You shall all three listen to Hercule Poirot while he gives you a lecture on crime.
- Title Drop: Poirot, noting how the murderer took advantage of an opportunity, quotes the Literary Allusion Title from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at its flood leads on to fortune."
- Trophy Wife: Presumably the reason why Gordon Cloade, a very rich man of 62, married a good-looking woman of 24 years of age.
- Victory Is Boring: The novel takes place right after World War II, with Lynn returning home after serving as a Wren. She finds life in her hometown dull by comparison.
- Villainous Breakdown: Subverted.
- Rowley snaps, confesses to killing two people and tries to kill Lynn. It later turns out that he is guilty of manslaughter only (and feels responsible for another man's suicide), and he is not in fact the villain of the story.
- The murderer, on the other hand, only cuts and runs when it's clear Poirot figured everything out, and once caught gives himself up quite calmly.
- What You Are in the Dark: Poirot remarks that all of the Cloades, whatever modest steps they took to carve their own paths, never really contemplated a future in which they wouldn't get their hands on Uncle Gordon's fortune, and the moment he died with that fortune in the hands of his young wife was a shock none of them was prepared for.To most of us the test comes early in life. A man is confronted quite soon with the necessity to stand on his own feet, to face dangers and difficulties and to take his own line of dealing with them. It may be the straight way, it may be the crooked way—whichever it is, a man usually learns early just what he is made of. But the Cloades had no opportunity of knowing their own weaknesses until the time they were suddenly shorn of protection and were forced, quite unprepared, to face difficulty.
- Wrong Guy First: A very unusual example. After a fling with undoubtedly evil David, Lynn decides to stay with her fiancé Rowley. Which would be perfectly fine, if not for the fact that he had tried to strangle her in a fit of jealous rage just a few hours earlier.
