Hercule Poirot’s Casebook (Hercule Poirot, #42)
by Agatha Christie
This collection of fifty short stories with Hercule Poirot is wonderful! Poirot is one of my favorite fictional detectives, and it’s so fun to see all these mysteries being solved very quickly in just a few pages. I love the longer Poirot novels as well, but I enjoyed reading these short stories because I could quickly finish each one within a few minutes when I had little time to read.
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Death on the Nile (Hercule Poirot, #18)
by Agatha Christie
Hercule Poirot is on vacation in Egypt, taking a boat trip down the Nile. Linnet Doyle, a young bride on her honeymoon, asks for Poirot’s help. She has stolen her new husband from her former best friend, Jackie, and now Jackie is following them everywhere they go, pestering them with her very presence. Poirot agrees to talk with Jackie and try to persuade her to leave them alone. He warns Jackie that if she continues on her present course, she will invite evil into her heart. And yet, the next day she is there on the boat, following the newlyweds once again. As he observes their behavior, Poirot begins to worry that some drastic violence will tear apart this love triangle… ending in murder.
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Evil Under the Sun
by Agatha Christie
5 out of 5 stars
Poirot is on vacation at a hotel on an island. He likes to people-watch and get to know the other tourists at the hotel, but he becomes uneasy when he sees a married lady flirting with another man who is also married. The entire hotel is gossiping about the affair when the lady turns up dead on the beach. Did her husband kill her in a jealous rage, or did someone else have motive for murder?
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Crooked House
by Agatha Christie
Charles and Sophia meet abroad and become engaged, but when Charles meets Sophia again in England, she refuses to acknowledge their engagement until the mystery of her grandfather’s murder is cleared up. Charles meets Sophia’s family, her aunts and uncles, and her step-grandmother. Each member of the family is suspicious of the step-grandmother because she was fifty years younger than her husband. They all think she must have gotten tired of waiting for him to die so that she could inherit his wealth. But Charles isn’t so sure, and Sophia is afraid that it might have been someone else in the family, someone close to her.
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The Pale Horse (Ariadne Oliver, #5)
by Agatha Christie
Ariadne Oliver’s friend Mark hears about the murder of a priest who had a list of names tucked into his shoe. He had written down the list after hearing a deathbed confession, and was promptly murdered in the street only moments later. Mark goes to Ariadne for advice as he becomes more and more deeply involved in this mystery. He hears rumors about a place called The Pale Horse, where witches and mediums call on dark forces. But surely that is all nonsense, and no one could believe that witchcraft would really kill a person with a mere thought.
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Hickory Dickory Dock (Hercule Poirot, #34)
by Agatha Christie
4.5 out of 5 stars
Hercule Poirot’s efficient secretary Miss Lemon is upset and distracted, because there have been some strange thefts at the student hostel that her sister runs. Poirot agrees to investigate the petty thefts to help out Miss Lemon’s sister, Mrs. Hubbard. At first it seems like random little things that have gone missing, but there are a few items that stand out from the list: a valuable doctor’s stethoscope, a diamond ring, a rucksack that was slashed to pieces, and all the lightbulbs in the common rooms. Only Poirot can sift through the clues and find a connection between the missing items. He begins to find out more about the students who board at the hostel, wondering which of them could be thief, or perhaps… a murderer.
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Appointment with Death (Hercule Poirot, #19)
by Agatha Christie
A family group are visiting Jerusalem, and they make the trip to see the ruins of Petra. Their fellow travelers notice that the family seem on edge, nervous, and even afraid. Their mother, Mrs. Boynton, controls every aspect of their lives, and she takes delight in cruelty, torturing them emotionally and mentally for years until they are almost crazed.
When Mrs. Boynton is poisoned at Petra, suspicion falls on each of her children. They are relieved that she is dead. They must have killed her to escape from her brutality. Only Poirot can discover the true killer and sift through the timeline of events that led to Mrs. Boynton’s death.
Murder in Mesopotamia (Hercule Poirot, #14)
by Agatha Christie
A nurse is called in to assist Mrs. Leidner, a lady with a case of nerves. Mrs. Leidner imagines that she sees a face at the window, tapping on the walls, and seems to be afraid of strangers. When a murder seems to confirm Mrs. Leidner’s fears, Poirot is called in to investigate. It is difficult to find definite proof, but Poirot trusts his little gray cells to unravel the mystery of the personalities involved. If he can only understand the personality of each person who was present at the time of the murder, their little jealousies and rivalries will point to the killer. Poirot relies on the eye-witness testimony of the nurse as the only unbiased person there.
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This collection of short stories combines some of my favorite Agatha Christie characters; Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and Parker Pyne. There are also stories from Tommy and Tuppence, Harley Quin, and Inspector Evans.
I enjoyed some of these, especially the Poirot stories, but others fell flat. I do not usually enjoy Tommy and Tuppence because they annoy me, and their mysteries in this collection were very obvious. However, some of the other stories were incredibly clever and interesting!
Thirteen at Dinner/ Lord Edgware Dies (Hercule Poirot, #9)
by Agatha Christie
5 out of 5 stars
Captain Hastings tells the reader about one of Hercule Poirot’s most baffling cases, a mystery so convoluted that Poirot described it as one of his failures. A disgruntled wife is seen to enter the home of her estranged husband. Hours later he is found dead. But the wife has a perfect alibi; she was at a dinner party with twelve other people. How could she have been in two places at once? Only Poirot can discover the truth!
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