Hercule Poirot's Christmas, Agatha Christie

 

⛄Merry Christmas!🌲

The Book

    The old man, and rheumatic invalid, Simeon Lee gathers his family together for an old fashioned, family Christmas. A hard and shrewd businessman, Simeon has left many a bruised feeling behind. While the family hopes to reconcile, Simeon, if anything, is still up to his old ways, stirring the pot and the feelings of ill will among his family. Finally, on Christmas Eve, everything boils over, and Simeon is definitely murdered. But how did the murderer get into the locked room and out again without having blood on his clothes, or being seen? 

Hercule Poirot is spending his Christmas in a quaint countryside, because really can the man choose between the quaint English countryside and the hustle and bustle of London? No. So here we go again with Poirot, who must be the world's greatest extrovert ever, oozing charm and amiability to local cops. He certainly has access to just about any cop anywhere in the world, and only a few times do we see that as a rivalry. Interesting. 

Anyway, Poirot comes in, uses his little grey cells, and solves the crime. Given the way the crime scene is described to us, despite it being a locked room, arriving at the correct solution becomes a bit easier. This crime makes sense, only if it is looked at a certain way, the way it was set up to allow the criminal to escape. And that is what Hercule Poirot sees, and what we the reader a supposed to see. 

My Thoughts

    Either I have read too many Agatha Christies in a row, or I am too jaded by modern mystery writing, but I am beginning to catch on to all of Christie's little misdirection tricks. I found this book, which I had not read before and for which I have absolutely no memory of seeing the David Suchet adapatation, (which cannot be said for a lot of these books, frequently I have a vague memory from way back in the early days of my marriage when I used to watch them once I had clocked out of my pizza delivery job, but I digress), a fantastic read. The previous book, felt a little like a slog. And I wondered while reading it if I had set myself up to read too many Agatha Christie's in a row just to get to this title. But this book felt different. I could not put it down. I do not think it is just that I read the large print edition, I also think I stayed in this story easier. 

    A lot of ink, or shall we say voice, has been spilled in the All About Agatha podcast about there being no Christmas in this book despite the title. And I neither agree nor disagree. Certainly there is no Christmas Tree, or presents, or decorations. There is a lot of complaining about possibly opening the door to carolers. There is mention about how this isn't a normal Christmas for any of them. I wouldn't say NO Christmas, but neither was the season evoked. I am tempted to believe that the Christmas part of this was nothing more than a shallow plot device to explain why ANY of the Lee (adult) children would come home, at all. Without the societal pressure for this type of reconciliation, I doubt Simeon could have gotten all of them in the same house. And having served it's purpose, Christmas was given no more thought than that. A Stephanie used to say on A Full House, "How RUDE!"

    It's a fun little puzzle, although I think with just a touch more thought Christie could have written the exact same story with a slightly more believable set up, and with just a touch more explanation given to why the murderer did what that person did. But then hindsight is 20/20.

How Much My Library Card Saved Me

    This book is the large print edition acquired by my library on January 12, 2016. The book crackles when it is open, although the binding on the pages is a bit loose. This book has clearly been read, but gently. The book is in fantastic condition. I am a bit sad that we don't have this book in the leatherette edition, but the cover art on this edition is wintery. (Although what that has to do with the plot is beyond me.) The cover says the book cost $34.95 so that is the number we will use. 

This Book                                             $34.95

Items Reviewed This Year                $1073.27

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