Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie

11^th September 2023.

The tense build up in this locked room murder provides the foundation for another classic Hercule Poirot investigation. It’s a couple of days before Christmas and the various members of the dysfunctional Lee family have gathered at the behest of patriarch Simeon.

This is the first time they have been together under one roof for many years. Add in a wayward son, the son of Simeon’s former partner in a diamond mine in South Africa and a half Spanish granddaughter, and there are plenty of suspects when the old man is murdered and left to die in his room, which is locked from the inside.

Enter Hercule Poirot, who assists the local police force and soon uncovers plenty of motives and anomalies to tax his little grey cells. But he’s equal to the task and soon makes sense of everything in one his best denouements to date.

As always, you have to marvel at Agatha Christie’s mastery of the classic whodunit. All the clues are in plain sight, if only you realised it when you read them. And Poirot employs all his skills from listening quietly to outright provocation to get to the truth.

Enjoyable and intriguing from start to finish, this novel’s plot and characters feel fresh, despite its age and setting.

Description

It is Christmas Eve. The Lee family reunion is shattered by a deafening crash of furniture, followed by a scream…

Upstairs, the tyrannical Simeon Lee lies dead in a pool of blood, his throat slashed.

But when Hercule Poirot, who is staying in the village with a friend for Christmas, offers to assist, he finds an atmosphere not of mourning but of mutual suspicion. It seems everyone had their own reason to hate the old man…