A good read

Hugh Fraser is a very good narrator, he brings the book to life. It is a good story, it's not my favourite Poirot book but it is an interesting plot and I am happy to return to this story from time to time.

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Not a very merry story

Even by Christie’s standards the plot is preposterous. However, in this audio version the story is brought to life with panache by Hugh Fraser - tackling several different accents. I enjoyed it (mainly because I had forgotten whodunnit) and the solution was probably very original when the story was written. Overall though, a bit of a dud in my opinion.

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A Perfect Festive Murder

Christie's books are amazingly timeless, witty & effortless. This was published in 1939, which is important, as there are references to the Spanish Civil War (audible often leave these dates out).

A classic 'locked room murder mystery' taking place at a family Christmas reunion. I didn't guess who the culprit was (although the clues were there) & I usually guess correctly with other authors. This has a bafflingly clever plot proving Christie's worth as the Queen of crime fiction. One of her more subtle & warmly traditional books, narrated so perfectly I could almost hear the fire crackling in the hearth beneath the Christmas stockings.

Ps. Audible's description makes it sound far more gory than it is!

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Good solid story

This is your typical country house mystery, set at Christmas but really the festive season plays no part in the story apart from being the reason everyone has gathered together. Good solid Agatha Christie mystery fare.

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A decent story but not very christmassy...

It's a decent enough mystery, with lots of areas of detail that throw you off and keep you guessing. Poirot seemed a little less animated than he was in Orient Expreaa, which is still my favourite Christie. The narrator did a great job with all the charaters. One of the main things that put me off which might seem a bit petty is that there was very little mention of Christmas let alone any details in the story. All in all a good story, however.

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Pleasant Christmas murder

Typical Christie story, well read. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a pleasant murder of an obnoxious person. Solved in a satisfactory manner.

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Superb

A great story as always from Agatha Christie, Hugh Fraser brought the whole thing alive will look forward to the next installment

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Classical Christmas whodunnit

If you are looking for a Christmas whodunnit that beautifully ticks all the Golden Age boxes, it is no surprise that the Queen of Crime delivers such a classical example. Famous detective; country pile filled with resentful relatives and mysterious strangers; Yuletide season; locked room plot with ingenious solution. All read with the minimum of fuss by “TV’s Captain Hastings”, to add to the fun. There is no urgent need for anyone to recommend a book written by history’s most successful novelist, but it is always satisfying when everything just works: in its small way, this is a delightful example.

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Ho! Ho! Aaarghhh!

Simeon Lee has gathered his severely dysfunctional family around him for Christmas, mainly so he can play them all off against each other and make their lives miserable, as is his wont. When he announces that he is thinking about changing his will the simmering tensions that already exist among his various sons and their wives reach boiling point. On Christmas Eve, the family party is disrupted by the sound of crashing furniture from Simeon's room, followed by a horrific scream. When the family arrive at his door, they find it locked on the inside and when they break in, they find Simeon with his throat cut, dead in a pool of blood, and no obvious route for the murderer to have escaped. Fortunately Hercule Poirot is visiting a friend in the village and he will soon be assisting the police in working out who committed the crime, and how.

I'm not usually a great fan of the howdunit style of mystery, mainly because they often descend into technical details and alibis at the expense of characterisation and motivation. But in this one, Christie shows that it’s possible to work a howdunit element into a more traditional whodunit style of plot. The howdunit element is fun and not quite as incredible as these things sometimes are in vintage mysteries, but the real strength of the book, as always with Christie, is in the motives and dynamics of the characters.

Simeon Lee is a perfect victim. An elderly man, he has spent a lifetime bullying his now long-deceased wife and his sons who for the most part resent him bitterly but still hang around in the hopes of getting their share of his money. His fortune was originally made in the diamond fields of South Africa long ago, and there is the question of whether something from his murky past there has come back to haunt him. There is also a puzzle of some missing uncut diamonds that he kept for sentimental reasons in his safe, so perhaps robbery was the motive. It’s fair to say he will not be greatly mourned even by his nearest and dearest, so happily the reader doesn’t have to waste any grief on him.

To be honest, I found the four sons and their wives weren’t perhaps as well characterised as usual – even quite late on I was still struggling to remember who was married to whom and what each brother’s story was. In fact, it took me ages to work out exactly how many sons there were! (This may well have been because I was listening rather than reading – as I’ve said before, my concentration does tend to dip more with audiobooks meaning I occasionally miss out on bits of info.) The outsiders to the main family seemed better developed – Stephen Farr, the son of Simeon’s old partner out in South Africa who has turned up unexpectedly and been invited to stay for Christmas, and Pilar, the daughter of Simeon’s daughter who blotted her copybook by marrying an entirely unsuitable Spaniard. Pilar’s personality is a discordant note of exotic passion among all these middle-aged and disillusioned siblings and their equally dull wives.

Is it fair play? Hmm, perhaps, but as with all howdunits it gets a bit tangled up in who was in what corridor at the time the butler was breaking the cup in the library just before the clock struck eight and was the window open or closed at the time, and so on. And frankly the solution came completely out of the blue – it seemed so unlikely that the “clue” that Poirot had spotted had somehow not been spotted by everyone else. I know that’s vague, but to explain it would be a spoiler. But as far as I’m concerned it’s one of the weakest crucial clues I’ve come across in a Christie book. It isn’t misdirection that makes people miss it – for the people in the story it must have been complete lack of observational skills, while for the reader I felt we really weren’t given a fair chance to spot it for ourselves.

However, despite these criticisms, I enjoyed the story and the Christmas setting, and Poirot is on his usual excellent form at weaselling out secrets from all and sundry. And although the solution sprang from nowhere, nonetheless it all makes sense and is quite satisfying once Poirot explains it. Not a favourite, then, but still an enjoyable read.

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Hugh Fraser is excellent

Every Agatha Christie book he reads is perfectly done, every character is superbly represented . Best poorly since John Moffat

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