'Problem at Pollensa Bay' Summary of the book
In this compilation of eight marvellous short stories, Agatha Christie delights readers with the presence of her three male sleuths in six respective stories. Two stories each for Parker Pyne, the duo Harley Quin-Satterthwaite and Hercule Poirot ‘the police hound.’ In the two other, two women on a crossroads of their life are faced with difficult decision to make.
The map of Majorca, Spain where Parker Pyne has to resolve a rift between two women while on holiday.
Presumably first appeared in the UK magazines, seven of them were written in the twenties and in the thirties. Only The Harlequin Tea Set was in 1971. Interestingly, the copyright of five of them were signed as Mrs. Mallowan; hence after her divorce in 1928.
Poirot’s cases concern with a reconstruction of a suicide and the death of an old eccentric well-to-do man who summons the Belgian to his home. In the former story, it starts when he receives a telephone call from a mysterious woman begging for his help. ‘…table with yellow irises,’ she sounds frightened of being overheard. In the latter, a shot is heard moments after the first gong for dinner but a guest firmly believes of having heard the second gong. Four years later the same plot appears in Dead Man’s Mirror (see Notes On The Murder In The Mews) with alterations to the character names.
In the non-detective stories, two female protagonists must make her choice. On the one hand, it is between a dog or starvation in Next To A Dog; the dog being the very memory of a dead husband. On the other, Theodora Darrel undergoes a battle of will between loyalty vs happiness. Will she still walk out from her marriage having known that her husband has been in a serious charge of theft and fraud? The Love Detectives (1926) seems to mark the early appearance of Harley Quin; an enigmatic man of whom his path is crossed with Mr. Satterthwaite’s on a number of occasions (see Notes On The Mysterious Mr. Quin). In a dark night both meets when their car collide; Sattwerthwaite is with Colonel Melrose on their way to a crime scene. An aristocrat has been killed with a bronze figure of Venus. Then his beautiful wife and a male guest whom stays over in the house confess of the murder. Who is one to believe?
Any readers who remember Mrs. Protheroe and Lawrence Redding will understand what occurs next in the story (see Notes On The Murder At The Vicarage). The clock is changed to suit the alibi of a suspect and the study also becomes where the ‘thing’ happens. In Miss Marple’s case, however, the deceased’s wife and her

Contents
1. Problem at Pollensa......7
2. The Second Gong..........33
3. Yellow Iris..................69
4. The Harlequin............95
5. The Regatta Mystery... 143
6. The Love Detectives....169
7. Next To a Dog........203
8. Magnolia Blossom....229