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Hercule Poirot's Christmas

Hercule Poirot's Christmas

A Hercule Poirot Mystery
ClassicsCrime
Pages
304
Published
1987
Language
English

Synopsis

Old, wealthy, and bedridden, Simeon Lee summons his estranged sons and their wives to the family seat at Gorston Hall for Christmas. The reunion is no gesture of warmth: the patriarch delights in needling his children, dangling hints about altering his will and stoking the resentments that have simmered between them for decades. A Spanish granddaughter he has never met and the son of a former business partner arrive to swell the uneasy household. On Christmas Eve, a crash of overturned furniture and a long, dying scream bring the family rushing to Simeon's door, only to find it locked from within. Inside lies the old man with his throat cut, the room drenched in blood and wrecked as though by a struggle, yet no killer to be found. Hercule Poirot, staying nearby, is drawn into an investigation alongside the local chief constable and a dogged superintendent. The puzzle turns on a sealed room, a missing fortune in uncut diamonds, and a family in which nearly everyone had cause to wish the tyrant dead. Sifting old grudges from fresh lies, Poirot weighs each alibi and each inheritance against the character of a man who shaped his children in his own image. The result is a tightly plotted festive whodunit that trades cosy seasonal cheer for something far darker, built on heredity, buried history, and the violence one household can conceal behind a closed door.

Prose complexity
3/10

Vibe

TenseDarkIntellectualAtmospheric
BetrayalRevengeFamily SagaLocked RoomSecret Identity

Genres

Classics Crime Mystery Police Procedural

About the author

A
Agatha Christie

Dame Agatha Christie (1890-1976) is the best-selling novelist of all time and the writer the world calls the "Queen of Crime." Born Agatha Miller in Torquay, Devon, she came to fiction on a dare: her sister Madge bet she could not write a convincing detective story, and the result, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, introduced the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. Her dispensing work in a hospital pharmacy during the First World War, repeated again during the Second, gave her the expert knowledge...

Characters

Hercule PoirotSupporting

Staying with the chief constable nearby, he applies his methodical reasoning to a sealed-room killing, paying close attention to the dead man's character and the family he bred.

Simeon LeeSupporting

Cruel and manipulative, he gathers his family largely to taunt them and toy with the question of his will; his throat is cut in his locked study on Christmas Eve.

Alfred LeeSupporting

The son who stayed loyal and managed the household, he remained devoted to his father despite the old man's contempt.

Lydia LeeSupporting

Intelligent and composed, she runs Gorston Hall and observes the family's tensions with a clear eye.

Harry LeeSupporting

Returned after years abroad, his reappearance reopens old wounds and he is among those his father seems to favour.

All characters in Hercule Poirot's Christmas

Frequently asked questions

  • Why did Agatha Christie write such a bloody murder in this book?

    Christie dedicated the novel to her brother-in-law James Watts, who had complained that her murders were becoming too refined and yearned for a good violent murder with lots of blood. In her dedicatory foreword she answered the request directly, making this an unusually gory killing for her work.

  • What is the locked-room puzzle at the centre of the story?

    On Christmas Eve the family hears overturned furniture and a scream from Simeon Lee's room, but his door is bolted from the inside. He is found with his throat cut in a wrecked, blood-soaked room with no killer present, posing the question of how the crime was committed and the murderer escaped.

  • Was the book published under different titles?

    Yes. It appeared in the UK as Hercule Poirot's Christmas in 1938. In the US it was published by Dodd, Mead in 1939 as Murder for Christmas, and a later US paperback edition was retitled A Holiday for Murder.

  • Has Hercule Poirot's Christmas been adapted for television?

    Yes. It was adapted as a feature-length episode of ITV's Agatha Christie's Poirot starring David Suchet, first broadcast in 1994. The episode was directed by Edward Bennett with a script by Clive Exton.

  • Who is Simeon Lee and why does he gather his family?

    Simeon Lee is a wealthy, tyrannical old man who made his fortune partly in South African diamond mines. He summons his estranged sons and their wives for Christmas largely to taunt them and to dangle hints about changing his will.

  • Where is the story set?

    The action takes place at Gorston Hall, Simeon Lee's country estate, over the Christmas holiday, where the gathered family, guests, and servants all fall under suspicion after the murder.

  • Where does this novel fall in the Hercule Poirot series?

    It is one of the long-running Hercule Poirot novels, published in 1938 between earlier titles and Christie's later wartime and post-war Poirot books.

  • Is this a good entry point for new Christie readers?

    It works well as a standalone festive mystery. The Poirot novels do not require reading in order, and this self-contained locked-room case can be enjoyed without prior knowledge of the series.

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