Poirot: The Incredible Theft

 "No, no, no, Hastings! Women do not want to talk about Berninis and cubic thingummies!"

This episode was... actually pretty bloody good. By far the best yet.

It's a twist on that old detective story standby as epitomised by Conan Doyle's The Naval Treaty, where top secret plans are stolen.It's quite an interesting setting for such a story- the 's, with Hitler and Mussolini causing trouble and an arms race in full swing with the spectre of war looming while all this between-the-wars existence of country houses and passing the port carries on regardless.

The script and dialogue, far more than usually, are witty and fun, and the cleverness of the plot is fun in its own intricate way, not so much a whodunit as a devilishly clever howdunit with more than one big double bluff.  

All this, and the characterisation of Poirot, Hastings, Miss Lemon and Japp is in full swing by this point. I enjoyed this. At this rate I may even return to do the second series after this one. We'll see.