Hercule Poirot’s Christmas audiobook

Someone's getting cozy-murdered during the most festive time of the year? Yes, sign me up! That should put me right in the holiday spirit.Wizened patriarch Simeon Lee wants his family around him for Christmas. So he puts out the call, and his children all answer, coming from far and wide to gather for the holidays. But when he's brutally murdered, no one seems that upset. In fact, they all appear somewhat relieved to be rid of the old man and his tyrannical ways. But who among them actually did the deed? Well, Hercule Poirot will find out.What a perfectly plotted locked-room mystery this turned out to be. Just about every time I read Agatha Christie, I stand in awe of her genius, and this time it's no different. This has all of her hallmarks: a small cast of characters, clues and red herrings galore, and a reveal that is sure to surprise the pants off any reader.Speaking of the reveal, I didn't see it coming. And that's what I love about Agatha Christie. Until the actual moment when Poirot gathers everyone together and unveils his hand, I had no idea what was going on. Of course the clues were all there. And on top of which, I've read this book before, although the last time was a decade ago. Obviously, I haven't become a better armchair detective in the meantime.Every time I pick up an Agatha Christie, I'm just filled with glee and anticipation. I know only goodness awaits me. Add in the festive atmosphere, and this one hits all the right notes for the perfect holiday whodunnit.

Christie siempre es garantía. Una lectura ágil, entretenida, con un final inesperado. Todos los personajes, como siempre, posibles culpables hasta que Poirot descubre lo contrario.

Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie is a 1938 publication. A masterful Golden Age mystery!! Simeon Lee, a difficult old man, blessed with wealth, but cursed with bad health, has invited his adult children home for the holidays. One might believe the old man has become sentimental and is hoping for a reconciliation and perhaps forgiveness from his family before he passes on. However, that doesn’t appear to be the case. It would seem that Lee, the host of this less than cheerful gathering, is playing some dastardly tricks on the people who hope to inherit his fortune. Unfortunately, his game backfires horribly, leaving investigators with a house full of suspects and a puzzling locked room mystery on their hands. Thankfully, Hercule Poirot has kindly offered his assistance in solving the case. "Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?" When I was younger, if I were to grab an Agatha Christie novel, for some reason, I always chose a Miss Marple mystery. But, over the years Hercule Poirot became my favorite of Christie’s detectives. However, there are still many books in this series I have yet to read- and this was one of them. While I understand that some aficionados have suggested it might be wise to read ‘Three Act Tragedy’ or ('Murder in Three Acts"), before reading this one, but I wanted to read a holiday themed mystery so I skipped way ahead. ( I honestly don’t think it really matters what order you read them in- but purists will be purists-😁😁 - and I'm just in this for the fun- so... )Christie’s trademark twists kept me on my toes in this solid whodunit/locked room mystery!! I didn’t figure out who the murderer was and loved the clever red herrings Christie used. I also enjoyed her tongue in cheek humor, poking fun at her own tendency to avoid too much graphic violence and her slight sarcasm about ‘locked room’ mysteries, carefully avoiding any insult to the reader’s intelligence. Although I thought Poirot was maybe a bit subdued in this installment, I can’t think of a better way to wind up my 2019 holiday reading than with a solid Golden Age mystery written by the queen of crime herself! 4 stars

A Hercule Poirot story dealing with Christmas during the Christmas time is the perfect way to celebrate the Christmas season for book lovers. A Hercule Poirot story dealing with Christmas during the Christmas time is the perfect way to celebrate the Christmas season for book lovers. Christie tells us the story of the wealthy person, Simon Lee. He was found murdered one day, along with some precious diamonds missing. Simon was having a peculiar type of personalityEveryone in his family comes together to celebrate Christmas. Instead of trying to stay happy, Simon is more interested in insulting his sons. He also said that he is planning to write a new will. I am a person who loves to predict the ending when I start reading a murder mystery. Agatha Christie is an author who always tricked me with her red herrings and writing style in predicting the murderer or the primary culprits in her stories. I am glad that I was able to predict the murderer correctly in the initial part of this book itself. It is mainly because the author gives some real clues at the start itself if you try to read between the lines in the initial part of this book more carefully. Poirot is brilliantly using some information from Medicine in this book (I can’t mention more about it here as it will be a big spoiler for those who haven’t read this book yet.) But Medicine is also a science of exceptions, and nobody should say with certainty what Poirot told as there are exceptions to what Poirot mentions in this book. What I learned from this book 1) Why is the Christmas season special? The Christmas season is one of the best seasons in the entire year. It is the time for celebration for most of us. The author gives some interesting views about Christmas in this book. “But Christmas, you’ll remember, is the season of forgiveness! We’ll welcome the prodigal home.Ah, but bygones must be bygones. That’s the spirit for Christmas, isn’t it, Lydia?” 2) Lies I remember reading about ten types of lies once in a book. They are the white lie, façades, ignoring the plain facts, deflecting, omission, stereotypes and clichés, groupthink, out-and-out lies, dismissal, and delusion. It is pretty easy to determine whether a person is lying if we closely examine their body language. The way their eyes move, the body movements, heart rate, and everything related to the body will be different when a person is lying “Everyone lies—in parts like the egg of the English curate. It is profitable to separate the harmless lies from the vital ones.” 3) What makes Agatha Christie’s books unique? There are some unwritten golden rules that murder mysteries or thrillers should follow. It is Agatha Christie herself who indirectly mentioned a few of these rules. In this book, we can see Poirot mentioning one among them. It is about coincidence which Poirot mentions here. The authors should try not to include the luck factor or coincidence favoring the protagonist or the villain more than once in their story. It is said that the authors bring these coincidences and luck factors into their books when they face writer’s block due to their inability to convey or carry forward the story in a convincing manner. I have written about the authors waywardly using coincidences in a few of my reviews earlier. (You can read more about this in what could have been better section of this review for the book, No exit) “Poirot said: ‘That is quite possible. I am always prepared to admit one coincidence.” My favourite three lines from this book “I believe the present matters --- not the past! The past muust go. If we seek to keep the past alive, we end, I think, by distorting it. We see it in exaggerated terms --- a false perspective.” “Marriage is an extraordinary thing—and I doubt if any outsider—even a child of the marriage—has the right to judge” “It is the quietest and meekest people who are often capable of the most sudden and unexpected violences for the reason that when their control does snap, it goes entirely.” What could have been better? In this book, Agatha Christie says some controversial things through Poirot’s character about Christmas. I can’t fully agree with what she mentions in this book. “You have said that Christmas is a season of good cheer. That means, does it not, a lot of eating and drinking? It means, in fact, the over eating! And with the overeating there comes the indigestion! And with the indigestion there comes the irritability! And families now, families who have been separated throughout the year, assemble once more together. Now under these conditions, my friend, you must admit that there will occur a great amount of strain. People who do not feel amiable are putting great pressure on themselves to appear amiable! There is at Christmas time a great deal of hypocrisy, honorable hypocrisy, hypocrisy undertaken pour le bon motif, c’est entendu, but nevertheless hypocrisy! I am pointing out to you that under these conditions—mental strain, physical malaise—it is highly probable that dislikes that were before merely mild and disagreements that were trivial might suddenly assume a more serious character. The result of pretending to be a more amiable, a more forgiving, a more high‐minded person than one really is, has sooner or later the effect of causing one to behave as a more disagreeable, a more ruthless and an altogether more unpleasant person than is actually the case! If you dam the stream of natural behavior, mon ami, sooner or later the dam bursts and a cataclysm occurs!” I think the author should have used better and less incisive words to convey what she wanted to tell in this novel. Poirot is saying that the British are sentimental about Christmas, which is why they don’t like what he mentioned about Christmas. The answer is that it is not just British, but all of us are sentimental about Christmas, and the author should learn to convey meaning without hurting the sentiments of the readers, This book was published almost a century ago, in 1938, and we can’t criticize it through our views of the 2020s. But still, I think the author should have done a better job here. Rating 3.5/5 Despite its flaws, this is one of the best Agatha Christie books you can read in the Christmas season due to its theme.

Not especially Christmas-y.

Feeling bloody christmasy. *evil laughter* *embarrassing silence*

Agatha Christie Book Reading ChallengeBOOK 25 :- DEC 20204.25 STARS

Audible credit Narrated by: Hugh Fraser  Series: Hercule Poirot, Book 20 Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins Enjoyed this narrator! One of his accents was a little heavy, but I adjusted to it.A locked room murder! A family reunion at the mansion of Simeon Lee. He is a cantankerous old guy, a bit of a scrooge and has some revenge in his blood.Maybe an unexpected guest?As per Christie, we have interesting characters, red herrings scattered throughout, and Hercule doing his thing as he interviews family and staff. I couldn't figure it out, but it was a fun ride.In the end, everything fits.... the culprit is caught and Poirot has done it again!Read December 2021

This is one of these Agatha Christie books where the Dame had not yet been out of ideas. No wonder I rated this novel 5 stars. I read Hercule Poirot's Christmas in French, and the translation by Louis Postif was delightful.This is a locked room murder where a wealthy patriarch dies in gruesome circumstances. There isn't a lack of suspects or red herrings. The author kept her cards close to her chest and surprised us readers since this book has been published.Personally I rate this book very high among Christie's books. All of the very best are classics. This one is better written than The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and may be on par with Murder on the Orient Express. I fully recommend it and hope you find some pleasure in it, in English or some other medium.

In a series where I try to solve the murders in Agatha Christie's books, I decide to tackle Hercule Poirot's Christmas on Christmas Eve to see if I can figure out the whodunit: https://youtu.be/E9frvo1pWYQ

Esta vez las células grises me sirvieron de algo.En realidad 3.5★Navidades trágicas sería casi lo mismo que el libro anterior que he leído de Agatha (Cita con la muerte). Comparten muchas características, en especial la de un tirano que es la cabeza de toda una familia que luego termina convirtiéndose en la víctima del caso y del que los principales sospechosos son los familiares. Y es que teniendo un padre como ese, que disfruta del caos, menospreciándolos, manipulándolos y haciéndolos enfrentarse lo más seguro es que tarde o temprano cualquiera de ellos quiso mover un dedo para quitárselo de encima, ¿o no? Lo importante es que fue en Navidad, justo cuando el viejo pudo reunir a todos sus hijos para estar juntos después de muchos años sin verse las caras. Quién diría que en una fecha muy especial surgiera tal tragedia.Por un lado, está el hijo pródigo (Harry) que es rebelde y la oveja negra de la familia; el hijo que es siempre leal a su padre (Alfred); el que lo odia profundamente (David) y por último el hijo pusilánime (George). Cualquiera de ellos pudo ser, pero lo cierto es que ese día no eran los únicos en la mesa. Sus esposas, los mayordomos y algún invitado no planeado estaban allí, por lo que el abanico de sospechosos es grande.En esta historia, al igual que en otras tantas, también hay un robo que puede o no estar conectado al asesinato. Y el crimen es en una habitación cerrada. Y por si fuera poco, hay varios detalles a los que si les pones la suficiente atención seguro que descubres hacia quién apuntan. En este caso pude descubrir al asesino y también cómo lo hizo siguiendo la lógica, así que me vi en la necesidad de felicitarme porque nadie más lo haría. Lo cual se siente como un verdadero logro cuando la reina del crimen y mi querido Poirot siempre me ven la cara cada vez que fallo estrepitosamente. Esta vez sí utilicé bien mis células grises por lo que me doy varias palmadas en la espalda como recompensa.

Es el primer libro que leo de Agatha Christie con Hércules Poirot como el detective a cargo del caso, y reconozco que me ha tenido más enganchada que todo lo anterior que he leído de esta autora. Es mucho más ágil, coherente y con buenos personajes.Me gustó muchísimo acompañar a Poirot en la resolución de este crimen y, sin alardear, no andaba tan desencaminada respecto de quién era el culpable. Estaba tan metida en la lectura que no pasé por alto algunas pistas que, en un principio, podrían parecer irrelevantes.Lo recomiendo más que otros de sus libros más famosos (lo siento, pero Diez negritos me decepcionó mucho... quizá iba con demasiadas expectativas). Reto #46 PopSugar 2020: Un libro de un autor que haya escrito más de 20 libros

Entre 4 e 4.5

Conniving, lecherous, vindictive self-server, cheating husband, verbally and emotionally abusive father, family tyrant --wealthy old Simeon Lee, by his own admission, is an impenitent liar and thief, described by one of his own sons as "the old devil." As a member of the human race, he doesn't have much to commend him, except for his money. But there's a LOT of that; he made his pile (probably shadily) in South Africa as a young man, prospecting for diamonds, and vastly added to it since by inventing and manufacturing improved mining equipment. Since he's now aged and pretty infirm, the idea of inheriting this fortune isn't exactly absent from the minds of the younger generation of his mostly estranged and not very loving (and unloved) family, all of whom he's now invited to gather for Christmas at his country mansion in England's Midlands. Sharing the joyous spirit of the holiday, however, isn't his motive. Rather, he just wants to amuse himself at their expense with malicious and sadistic head games, starting with the bombshell revelation that he's about to change his will. (And did I mention the cache of uncut diamonds that he keeps in his bedroom safe?)This is, obviously, a mystery novel, and any readers who bother to read book dedications will know already that it's a murder mystery. Dame Agatha's beloved brother-in-law, though a faithful fan of hers, had bemoaned the fact that the murders in her previous novels had been too "civilized" and dainty as to methods; he wanted "a good violent murder with lots of blood," and she good-naturedly obliged him here, in spades, and dedicated the result to him. Nor are readers familiar with genre conventions going to need three guesses as to who the victim will be. Fortunately, though, series detective Hercules Poirot, who solved an earlier case in the area (Three Act Tragedy) is spending the holiday season with his friend, the chief constable of "Middleshire," so is available to assist with the investigation. It's one that will furnish his "little grey cells" (and probably those of most readers) with a real workout!As a reader, I opened this book (which was a common read in one of my Goodreads groups) under what most mystery fans would say is a disadvantage: some years ago, I'd already seen the PBS Mystery! series adaptation of the novel, starring David Suchet as Poirot, so I knew in advance who the killer was. For me, this didn't spoil the read, since much of the pleasure was in experiencing Christie's telling of the story and admiring her artistry (then too, I'd forgotten many details of the plot and characterizations, and the PBS scriptwriters depart from the book in places). But I couldn't experience the story the way the first readers would, or enjoy trying to guess the solution. I believe, though, that this would be a real challenge; Christie did a superb job of hiding clues in plain sight and creating a seemingly insoluble puzzle. As is not uncommon in her novels, the list of suspects is finite; the scene of the murder is a country house with strictly limited ingress and egress, and the discovery of the body and arrival of the police almost immediate. The culprit has to be one of the inhabitants of the house, their guests, or their servants. But while the secret of the locked door actually yields itself up pretty quickly, the other pieces of physical and verbal evidence are mysterious and confusing in the extreme, and plausible suspects abound. This crime was uniquely ingenious, and solving it will require thinking that's way outside the box.For some mystery fans (including myself), though, a tale needs more than a challenging mental puzzle to make it a truly pleasing read; genuinely rewarding literature is about people, their personalities, needs, motivations and choices, relationships. IMO, Christie measures up here on this level as well. True, Poirot's usual foil, Capt. Hastings, is absent in this book; some readers in my group missed him, and the pair's usual relationship. Also, while Chief Inspector Japp plays an important role in the PBS adaptation, and the Poirot-Japp interactions are actually some of the best parts there, he doesn't appear in the book at all. But Christie makes up for this with a wonderfully lifelike portrayal of all of the members of this dysfunctional family, every one of them a distinct and unique individual, and draws their interactions with a realism that brings them totally to life and has you, the reader, relating to them as people. (Had Christie left murder out of the plot, she'd probably have earned credit for creating a Realist masterpiece of family drama and dynamics; but Realist critical dogma defines crime as a plot element that can't occur in "normal life." Of course, real-life crime statistics would tend to belie that, but critical dogma isn't amenable to any kind of real-life evidence.) One reviewer felt that the portrayal of Poirot here, in comparison to novels Christie wrote earlier, lacks life, depth, and color. But with all due respect (and granting that I'm much less well read than she is in the Poirot canon, and that only three Poirot novels among those I've read were written before this one), my own perception is that Christie's portrayal of the character is actually pretty consistent from book to book, and that here he comes across very much as I would have expected him to. (Of course, I consistently picture him as David Suchet.... :-) )Despite the backdrop of the Christmas season, this is not the sort of tale that would be typical holiday fare for, say, the Hallmark Channel; it's not a feel-good seasonal read. But neither does Christie succumb to cynicism. In virtually all of her writing, she exhibits a solid moral compass and an essential optimism about life and the working of the world, even in the face of a very real human capability for evil. (The other side of the coin is a very real capability for good, and for good to triumph....) For readers who share her literary vision, I don't think this book would disappoint.

Me gustó más de lo que pensé que me gustaría. La historia gira en torno al asesinato del patriarca de la familia Lee, el Sr. Simeon Lee, quien es un viejo adinerado un tanto inválido que decide como gran distracción invitar a todos sus hijos a pasar la navidad. Con él viven entre varios sirvientes Sidney Horbury, quien es enfermero recién hace un año, el más antiguo, el mayordomo Edward Tressilian y su hijo mayor Alfred Lee con su esposa Lydia, mujer astuta y que parece manejar a su esposo en cierta medida.Para navidad los invitados van llegando, los otros hijos: George, David, con sus esposas, la oveja negra de la familia, Harry y dos invitados no tan esperados, Pilar Estravados y Stephen Farr. al final todos empiezan a pasar la navidad aunque lo que hace bastante interesante a la obra, muchos de ellos tienen conflictos internos, sobre todo por la vida que han llevado hasta ahora, muchos de los hijos ni siquiera veían al padre por diferentes motivos. El Sr. Simeon Lee demuestra en sus actos así como en la historia que se cuenta de él, haber sido una persona muy interesada en el dinero, en controlar a sus hijos, inmoral y muchas otras cosas que ganan la antipatía de cualquiera, pues en vísperas de navidad, de pronto resulta asesinado de una manera bastante extraña, sobre todo porque parecen no saber por dónde pudo haber escapado el ladrón.En esta situación el pobre Poirot, que se encontraba tranquilo con el coronel Johnson hablando de lo poco que hay problemas en Navidad asiste a la gran necesidad del coronel de tratar un caso nuevo que acaba de llegar, desde luego el de la familia Lee.Personalmente, aunque no soy especialista del género, este libro me gustó mucho creo que un poco más de "Asesinato en el Orient..." y menos que "Diez negritos". Me gustó sobre todo la caracterización (aunque superficial por supuesto) de los intereses y actitudes de cada miembro de la familia, así como de la protección que algunas de las mujeres querían dar a sus parejas o a otras personas. También me gustó la manera de reunir todos los datos de Poirot que muchas veces recibía gracias "al azar" datos que realmente se me pasaron muchísimos que luego pudo utilizarlos en importantes pistas que llevaron al desenlace final. Personalmente, me gustó quién fue el asesino (a) y la manera de ejecutar el crimen. El final también cerró muy bien y definitivamente el toque navideño lo hace algo especial, creo que estará entre mis favoritas de la autora.