22nd January 2024

Sophie Hannah returns with a well inspired fifth Hercule Poirot mystery. She has a great grasp of the character, style, and mystery, and has produced another captivating tale.

Poirot and Catchpole get a surprise visitor who drags them away from their Christmas plans to solve a murder that has happened and one that hasn’t happened yet.

I find it really satisfying how Hannah is able to play with the characters now in a way that feels really true to Christie’s style and so continues to bring a sense of comedy to the proceedings.

The settings, the mystery, and especially the characters feel really believable, and I particularly enjoy the perfect balance between what is and isn’t said about the relationships between them.

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4th November 2023

Sophie Hannah’s fourth Poirot novel sees him and his friend Inspector Catchpool getting on a coach to visit a fairly new communal estate in the countryside. Naturally on the way they learn about various murder plots, and set out to investigate.

I feel that Hannah has been able again to craft a perfect narrative that balances between being true to Agatha Christie’s style and characters while also feeling up to date in style and morality, despite the period setting.

The plot of this one has a lot going on, and there were a few moments where I thought I’d spotted clues only for them to be red herrings. One reveal I felt was obvious for a long way coming, but that didn’t help me get ahead of the game for the big one.

I really enjoy Hannah’s extensions to the Poirot canon and will be looking out for the next one.

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29th December 2021

Sophie Hannah’s third Poirot novel is one I’ve put off reading for some years, but found a pleasant return to the character.

The characterisation of Poirot is perfect - the little mannerisms, the ways of thinking, all spot on.

The plot is a solid mystery - four letters have been written accusing different people of the same murder - and it’s up to Poirot to sort the truth from the lies.

The narrative however is quite long, certainly feeling longer than the Christie originals, and quite convoluted. The storytelling is presented as if from one point of view, but still presents scenes that the narrator can’t have been present for.

Overall though, worth reading for the joy of a new mystery.

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8th October 2016

Sophie Hannah returns to pen her second Hercule Poirot novel in what appears to be becoming an officially sanctioned continuation series (although in the originals, there is little continuity between stories, and here we have several direct references to the previous story).

This time Poirot, and our returning narrator, Inspector Catchpole, are summoned to Ireland to the home of a dowager countess who plans to make a startlingly my announcement. It's hardly a spoiler to say that murder ensues, and we join the sleuths as they investigate.

Hannah captures brilliantly the balance of crime and humour that Christie's own works were populated with, particularly with the character who I felt was Enid Blyton-esque (though others have suggested it's Christie herself) who adds the necessary touch of comedy that keeps this style of whodunnit from becoming dark and gritty like much of the modern crime genre.

I was not massively impressed with Hannah's previous Poirot book, but this time felt that she had got it spot on - an excellent mystery which only mostly baffled me until the end.

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21st September 2014

Sophie Hannah has been given the privilege and the responsibility of bringing back Hercule Poirot in his first 'official' continuation novel. A mystery triple death at a London hotel lands on Poirot's doorstep as he's living with our narrator, conveniently a local police detective.

While it was certainly interesting and entertaining to read, I don't think that Hannah's quite got a grasp on Christie's style, has overcomplicated the plot, and the books feels in places more of a parody than Christie's own writing does. The mystery itself is complex to the point that the number of false endings left be baffled as to what the actual conclusion was, and it felt like there were still loose ends which Poirot had not tied off.

The first-person narration seems to shift in time, in some places portraying itself as being written shortly after the events depicted, and in other place long after. The narrating character, a new one that Hannah introduces, has an irritating habit of insinuating things about his own sexuality over and over again, which while an interesting aside at first, becomes too blatant after much repetition and just feels awkward.

The words 'little grey cells', while often used by Christie, are over used here which just ends up being distracting from the plot. In conclusion, the story works fairly well for the most part, and there are hints of Christie's style, but overall it's just not up to a standard that respects Poirot's original creator, and I think it would probably have been better to let the Belgian detective stay resting.

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