Hercule Poirot's Christmas
Crime, Mystery
Agatha Christie
Hercule Poirot, Book # 21
Harper Collins
December 19th 1938
Paperback
335
English
December 6, 2021 December 10, 2021
Beat the Backlist, Cloak and Dagger, Finishing The Series, Library Love, The Backlist Reader, Virtual Mount TBR
In Hercule Poirot's Christmas, the holidays are anything but merry when a family reunion is marred by murder — and the notoriously fastidious investigator is quickly on the case. The wealthy Simeon Lee has demanded that all four of his sons — one faithful, one prodigal, one impecunious, one sensitive — and their wives return home for Christmas. But a heartwarming family holiday is not exactly what he has in mind. He bedevils each of his sons with barbed insults and finally announces that he is cutting off their allowances and changing his will. Poirot is called in the aftermath of Simeon Lee's announcement.
About the book
Poirot’s Christmas is cut short when the superintendent of Colonel Johnson, with whom he is spending Christmas, announces the murder of the grumpy Simeon Lee. In fact, the man is found by his children locked in his room with his throat cut.
Everyone in the family is suspicious as everyone has a reason for wanting the death of their father or father-in-law. Or grandfather. In fact, in the house there is also the old man’s granddaughter, daughter of his daughter who died a year earlier. In addition, the son of Simeon’s old business partner also flew in from South Africa to meet him. Who, from wanting to kill the patriarch, has moved on to action?
What I think
First of all I have to say that I read this book because * e m m i e * said she wanted to make another video where she tries to solve the case. So it is her fault that I’m not reading the books in order 
. But I honestly don’t think that reading them in disorder is a mortal sin, at least if you don’t read the prefaces (yes, those who write prefaces often say how a book ends, more over in Miss Marple’s preface I have already read the end of Poirot, do you think it’s a correct behaviour? Anyway I’m digressing). Furthermore, the story takes place at Christmas and this is the best time to read the book (and moreover, I have already read book n° 8 and 12, I think, without having read the first book of the series, which I, then, read, so let’s say this series was born like this).
Be that as it may, I really enjoyed the book. The clues that Agatha leaves are very hidden, but unlike whoever wrote the afterword, I caught them all and the moustache that Poirot is so jealous of, was the one thing which gave me the last clue I needed (beyond to children’s balloons).
Yes, I think I like Poirot much more than Miss Marple, since it is the third book I adore. If only my library had all the books in e-books I would be happy!
In any case, I recommend this adventure by Poirot especially if read in this period.
And I hope you had a wonderful Christmas full of love, family and books 
