About this production
The Big Four is the fourth full-length Poirot novel, published in January 1927, a few weeks after Christie's eleven-day disappearance had put her on the front pages, and it is the book she later dismissed as "that rotten book." It was never written as a novel. In 1924 she had serialised twelve linked stories in The Sketch under the title The Man Who Was Number Four; in 1926, with her marriage collapsing and her mother newly dead, she was in no state to write anything new, and her brother-in-law Campbell Christie helped her stitch the stories into a single manuscript so she would have something to give her publisher. Reviewers at the time found it thin and the international conspiracy far-fetched, and it still sits near the bottom of most rankings of her books. It also outsold The Murder of Roger Ackroyd two to one. And, for the reason the critics disliked it, it is the Poirot book best built for a cast: not one puzzle but a run of episodes, each with its own room of people.
Chapter 1 (18m 27s) sets the terms. Hastings is back from his ranch in Argentina to surprise his old friend, and finds Poirot packing for a lucrative job in Rio. Then a stranger, coated head to foot in dust, is standing in the bedroom doorway; he collapses, and before he loses consciousness he writes the figure 4 over and over on a sheet of paper and names the syndicate: a Chinese mastermind, an American millionaire, a French scientist, and a fourth member known only as the Destroyer. Chapter 2 (10m 24s), the shortest in the production, is the death, the man who comes to collect the body, and Poirot naming what he is now in: a duel to the death with a master of disguise.
That is where a single reading voice runs out of room. Most Poirot novels keep to a house or a village; this one crosses the Channel every few chapters, and the production casts every crossing. There are 56 speaking parts. Hastings is the narrator's voice, as a first-person novel should be, and his lines in dialogue are the same voice. Poirot and Hastings are the same voices you heard in The Murder on the Links, and Poirot is the same Poirot as in The Mystery of the Blue Train; Inspector Japp is back from Scotland Yard. Around them the book fills up with nationalities: Abe Ryland, the American millionaire, and the stenographer in his office; Madame Olivier in her Paris laboratory and the acolyte who guards it; the Countess Vera Rossakoff, the one adversary Poirot is fond of; John Ingles, the old China hand, and his Chinese servant; Captain Kent of the United States Secret Service; a Russian chess grandmaster and his niece; a Home Secretary and a French premier in the same room in Chapter 16; an actress from the variety stage; a Devon police inspector and a housekeeper, nurses, a hotel porter, a waiter, a messenger boy, and the men in the cellar in Limehouse. Read solo, that is one English throat doing all of it. Cast, a listener always knows who is in the room and where they come from, with no "he said" required. Our guide to what an AI narrator tells listeners is about exactly that, and how many character voices an audiobook needs answers the question for a book of this size. There is one more casting decision to listen for. Number Four is a master of disguise, and in this production his disguises are separate voices, so the listener is taken in at exactly the moments Hastings is.
The episodes are the set pieces, and they are paced like the short stories they were. Chapter 4 (15m 28s) is a whodunit in miniature: a murdered man in Devon, a servant framed by bloody footprints, and a frozen leg of mutton in the larder that proves a delivery was made on a day the butcher never calls. Chapter 7 (24m 49s) is the radium theft in Paris, a bribe, a trap, and a cigarette. Chapters 9 to 11 are the chess murder: a young champion dies at the board in the middle of a match, and Chapter 11 (31m 39s), the longest in the production, is Poirot taking the mechanism apart for Hastings. Chapter 12 (17m 31s) and Chapter 13 (16m 47s) are the Limehouse episode, and the reason Hastings's Argentine ranch matters: the young woman who called herself Cinderella in The Murder on the Links is now Mrs. Hastings, and a cable about her is how the Big Four get him alone. Chapter 16 (26m 40s) ends with a match-box and an explosion in the flat, and Chapter 17 (20m 28s) is Hastings on his own in London, being warned to leave England. What Chapter 18 (21m 08s) does about that we leave to the mountain fortress in the Dolomites where the book ends. For how a scene like that is directed and mixed, see the mystery and detective production guide.
The score and the sound design get a wider map than any other Poirot: the flat in London, a cottage in Devon, a laboratory in Paris, a quarry at night, a chess room, a cellar under Limehouse, a sickroom in Hertfordshire, the deck of a destroyer, a villa in the Ardennes and a fortress in the Alps, with gas, explosives, a rigged chess table and a poison dart along the way. A dramatized production earns its keep on a book like this because so much of it is machinery and menace rather than deduction, and because Hastings narrates most of it a step behind what is happening. Does your book need a full cast? makes the general case; this production is the specific one.
This is one of the Agatha Christie productions in our free catalogue. Its companions are The Murder on the Links, where the rival is a single French detective rather than a syndicate, and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the book published the year before, where the narrator is a village doctor and the trick is in the telling. Keeping Poirot, Hastings and Japp the same voices from book to book is the point of cast continuity across a series, and this is the book where it pays off.
The production runs 6h 13m and contains all 18 chapters of the novel, unabridged and in order, from the dust-covered stranger in the doorway to the last page in the Dolomites, with opening and end credits. It is free to listen to.
The 1927 text is in the public domain in the United States. Agatha Christie died in 1976, so the book is still under copyright in the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area. This title is available to listen everywhere except those territories.
By the numbers
- Format: Full-cast dramatized audiobook
- Chapters: 20 (all 18 chapters of the novel, plus opening and end credits)
- Runtime: 6h 13m
- Cast: Hastings narrating in character, Hercule Poirot, Inspector Japp, and 56 speaking parts in all
- Production: AI character voices, original music, and sound effects
- Price: Free to listen
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Start your first chapter free →FAQ
Is this audiobook AI-narrated?
Yes. Every voice in The Big Four is AI-generated and produced by Midsummerr, with an original score and sound design. AI narration is disclosed as such on retail platforms that require it.
How long is the audiobook?
About 6h 13m across 20 chapters: the novel's 18 chapters plus opening and end credits.
Who narrates it?
The novel is written in the first person by Captain Arthur Hastings, so the narrator in this production is Hastings's own voice, and his lines in dialogue are the same voice. Every other character, Poirot included, is a separate cast voice.
Is this the fourth Poirot novel?
Yes. The full-length Poirot novels before it are The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), The Murder on the Links (1923) and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926). The Big Four was published in January 1927, assembled from twelve stories Christie had serialised in The Sketch in 1924.
Who are the Big Four?
A criminal syndicate of four: a Chinese mastermind who never leaves China, an American millionaire, a French scientist, and a fourth member, a master of disguise known as the Destroyer, whose face nobody can describe. Finding out who Number Four is takes Poirot the whole book.
Why can't I listen in the UK or the EU?
The 1927 text is in the US public domain, but copyright in the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area runs for seventy years after the author's death, and Agatha Christie died in 1976. The production is available everywhere else.
Where can I listen?
Listen free at midsummerr.com/listen/the-big-four.
