I started to read this just after Christmas, and thankfully
only the first of the stories is about Christmas. Otherwise I would still be
feeling Christmassy. So yes it is a collection of six short stories featuring
either Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple. A slight deviation from my Poirot fest,
but a little interlude of Miss Marple isn’t going to upset me at all.
So on the menu are:
The Adventure of the
Christmas Pudding
The Mystery of the
Spanish Chest
The Under Dog
Four-and-Twenty
Blackbirds
The Dream
Greenshaw’s Folly
Greenshaw’s Folly was
the story featuring Miss Marple and potentially my favourite one of the bunch.
It is only a short story and there aren’t that many characters, but the
characters that are in this are brilliant. It’s murder but you end up laughing
at who gets the last laugh. I saw a dramatization of this shortly after reading
it. It was good, but they had made it into a full length film so had added
loads of characters and story lines. Which is fine – it was enjoyable, but I
think the lighter short story is better.
The Adventure of the
Christmas Pudding is one that you should read on Christmas Eve with a mug
of hot chocolate in hand, curled up in front of a log fire. I love Poirot in
this. It features characters that turn Poirot’s genius into kindness as well.
Endearing is the word I would use for it.
Other picks are The
Mystery of the Spanish Chest. Wasn’t concentrating enough at the start and
thought I knew who the murder was pretty much from the start. Until I realised
that the person I’d picked out as the murderer was in fact the victim. Fail.
The Dream was weird, a little bit
spooky, but clever.
The rest you will just have to read for yourself. If you
read the whole book I reckon you have a ten day read to go at.
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