HarperCollins The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding

A christmas present for my boss she loves it. short storiesmmean it's easy to read in small chunks and sotories very engaging

Lo recomiendo a todo fan de Ágatha Christie. Llego en excelentes condiciones y a tiempo.

Bought as a present for Christmas

It took a while longer to receive this book (from the U.K.) but it was brand new and a bookmark you can color was inserted. :)

Due to her stage commitments, Agatha didn’t have time to write anything new in 1960. Therefore, these adaptions of previously published short stories were curated to take advantage of the Christmas market. Five involve Poirot while the sixth (Greenshaw’s Folly) is a short case solved by Miss Marple. Only the first has a festive theme.The Adventure Of The Christmas PuddingIn a brief foreword, Agatha admits the first short story is an indulgence where she recalls the idyllic Christmases of her youth. For me, it’s the best of this compilation.Tasked with recovering a stolen Ruby, Poirot enjoys the season’s festivities in a country house with a family unaware of the true purpose for his visit. Having ignored a mysterious warning not to eat Mrs Ross’ delicious homemade plum pudding, Poirot gives his drugged coffee to somebody else, arranges the murder of a child in the garden, and lets the person he accuses escape. He even gets kissed beneath the mistletoe for his troubles. The things people do for careless Far Eastern princes! If only all Christmases were this much fun.The Mystery Of The Spanish ChestThis is a crime of passion sadly spoilt for me by Poirot’s reference to a well-known Shakespearean tragedy. The relentless interviewing is a bit mind bending at times but the solution is worth the effort if you don’t know the play.A man is found stabbed to death in an old Spanish chest positioned in a room where a party was held the night before. Just two people had the opportunity to kill him and only one of them had motive. Inspector Miller is convinced he has his man and things are looking bleak for Major Rich. However, after endless questioning of the suspects and possible witnesses, Poirot is convinced neither is guilty. So who did murder Arnold Clayton? Time to think outside the box in this intense but clever plot.The Under DogThe longest of the short stories is full of distractions and red herrings to complicate what already seems to be an impossible case for Poirot. To spice things up a little, Agatha throws Inspector Miller from The Mystery Of The Spanish Chest in to the mix - and the two really don’t get on.Sir Reuben Astwell was a cruel man with a quick temper. He was surrounded by people with reason to kill him and when he’s found bludgeoned to death one morning, all evidence points to his nephew Charles Leverson as the murderer. However, Lady Astwell isn’t convinced and asks Poirot to investigate. But how can a man be innocent when he was heard shouting at the victim and seen leaving the room immediately after his body fell to the floor? Particularly when he also left his fingerprints in the man’s blood and had blood on his own clothes.To reveal the truth, Poirot needs to be at his psychological best when interviewing all the challenging personalities involved. Although faking evidence and using a hypnotist to find answers is pushing it a bit.Four-And-Twenty BlackbirdsAt 21 pages, this is Poirot’s shortest case in the collection. No room for misdirection here. Just good old-fashioned observation and deduction.An old man dining at the same restaurant as Poirot recently changed his usual eating habits. Weeks later he’s found dead following an accident at home. Poirot has misgivings and discovers the man died the same day as his wealthy twin brother so he decides to investigate.It’s a decent enough read if you’ve got 30 minutes to kill but Poirot makes short work of the pretty obvious clues without much incident or drama. In the foreword, Agatha describes this as the “sorbet’ in her Christmas feast of short stories. Well, it’s certainly light and easily digested though I found it a bit too waterered down and slightly disappointing.The DreamFirst published in 1937, one year after a full-length Poirot novel with a very similar ending, The Dream is a closed room murder mystery with an improbable solution.An eccentric and reclusive businessman tells Poirot of his recurring dream that he takes his own life. A week later, he apparently shoots himself while two visitors sitting outside the only point of entry to the room he was in, hear and see nothing. Despite Benedict Farley predicting his own suicide, Poirot is suspicious and seeks to find an alternative explanation.I thought this was a really clever plot and was enjoying working out the clues until I realised it’s adapted from a method Agatha has used before. I didn’t think it was believable then and the version used here is even more fanciful. Also, an important piece of misdirection wasn’t concealed as well as it might have been so I had a pretty good idea of how the murder was planned before everything was revealed. Still, when reading Agatha’s mysteries, it’s good to have your suspicions confirmed once in a while and it didn’t ruin anything.Greenshaw’s FollyDespite the title being very similar to Agatha’s short story, Hercule Poirot And The Greenshore Folly, which later formed the basis for the full-length novel Dead Man’s Folly, this version is a completely different case. Although the setting feels familiar, the victim is killed by unorthodox use of an arrow and the consultant detective is Miss Marple!Old Miss Greenshaw is seen staggering across her lawn with an arrow sticking out of her chest. However, the suspect with the strongest motive is locked in an upstairs room of the house at the time and this is confirmed by the first police officer on the scene.Things aren’t what they appear to be but Miss Marple isn’t fooled. She combines her knowledge of theatre, gardening, and human nature with incredible guesswork to solve everything from the comfort of her armchair.Readers of After The Funeral and Death In The Clouds might recognise some of the ideas used but a significant part of the misdirection is straight from The Mousetrap, which is surprising given Agatha’s reluctance to spoil the play by including elements of it in her books. If you intend seeing The Moustrap and don’t know the solution, then maybe don’t read Greenshaw’s Folly.Overall, this is an entertaining collection of short stories. Agatha describes it as a book of “Christmas fare” but apart from the title and the first story of the same name, there’s nothing festive about them. Just some short stories revived from the Christie archive and put out for Christmas. I’m glad I read them but the decorations can stay in the box.