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  • The Labours of Hercules

  • By: Agatha Christie
  • Narrated by: Hugh Fraser
  • Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (443 ratings)
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The Labours of Hercules

By: Agatha Christie
Narrated by: Hugh Fraser
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Summary

In appearance Hercule Poirot hardly resembled an ancient Greek hero. Yet, reasoned the detective, like Hercules he had been responsible for ridding society of some of its most unpleasant monsters.

So, in the period leading up to his retirement, Poirot made up his mind to accept just 12 more cases: his self-imposed "labours", all detailed in this short-story collection. Each would go down in the annals of crime as a heroic feat of deduction.

©1947 Agatha Christie Limited. A Chorion Company. All rights reserved (P)2005 HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, London UK

Critic reviews

"Richly devious and quite brilliant." ( San Francisco Chronicle)

What listeners say about The Labours of Hercules

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Much enjoyed

What made the experience of listening to The Labours of Hercules the most enjoyable?

Short stories would seem to be Agatha Christie's forte, and these do not disappoint. The stories themselves are highly enjoyable and relatively easy to follow, and the narration is excellent. These stories can be listened to time and again without boredom beginning to sink in, and I would highly recommend this audiobook to any Christie fan.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Good Stories

Hi. These are fun stories, the odd one is a bit weaker then the rest but overall 9 Poirot stories which are great fun.

They are only around 40 minutes in length so it's easy to sit down and listen to one story at a time.

Well worth a listen, and nicely read.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Contrived but entertaining

This collection of 12 short stories, tenuously based on the original Graeco-Roman myth (of which Poirot claims never to have heard before he is challenged on the appropriateness of his first name in the prologue and decides to undertake a parallel set of tasks before retiring), is ingenious and unusual, but willing suspension of disbelief is more essential than ever.
Christie is at her most waspish - all foreigners, the less affluent English, the nouveau riche, women of less than perfect appearance, wearing off-the-peg clothes, or pursuing a career are all subject to ridicule. Glad I am she didn’t realise that we Scots exist: the Irish come under fire in this book, but as a sideline.
She’s getting up to date in her own way - drug dealing, but terribly well-bred and respectable, covering up political corruption (but in a good cause!!), unemployment (but portrayed as a distraction from the real business of auctioning a Rubens painting!).
At the same time the unemployability of those boys brought up to expect wealth without work, and girls trained to make “good marriages” continues to play an important role in her writing.
The story of Alexander VI’s goblet is particularly unhistorical and fanciful, for many reasons.
Nevertheless it’s an enjoyable listen, even if you get mental indigestion afterwards.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Labours of Hercule poirot

Hugh Fraser narrated it very well. It was an intresting book with twelve different stories all done very well I really enjoyed listening to it.

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4 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Surprised me a number of times!

I listen to a lot of Agatha Christie and so I thought that I would be able to guess the endings in this collection of stories, how wrong I was! I was surprised by a number of the twists and turns. A good collection and well read (as always) by Hugh Fraser.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent easy listening

I love Poirot stories but this collection is excellent, well read (as always!) and short enough to enjoy in snippets. The flow of the story is perfect so as the book progresses its a fun listen.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great bedtime reading

Nice set of mysteries to solve for Hercule Poirot. Enjoyed it and perfect for bedtime reading.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Too much ‘He said... she said.....’

Good story. Well performed. However this is semi dramatised, so each character has their own voice performed by the narrator. As such it’s obvious who’s talking during a conversation. So the constant repetition ‘Poirot said’ or ‘he said’ or ‘she said’ is jarring and unnecessary.

Overall good book and performance but the producers should have chopped out many of these ‘he said’ insertions.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent listen

Another compilation of stories within 1 story. Hugh Fraser does a good job of character voices.
Really enjoyed this book.🙂

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Short Stories

Love this collection of short stories, what imagination Agatha Christie had. Hugh Fraser brings it all to life.

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1 person found this helpful