Werner's Reviews > Hercule Poirot's Christmas

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.