Review – Poirot Investigates

Posted September 30, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Review – Poirot Investigates

Poirot Investigates

by Agatha Christie

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Short Stories
Pages: 265
Series: Hercule Poirot #3
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

The very first collection of superb short stories featuring Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastingsā€¦

First there was the mystery of the film star and the diamondā€¦ then came the ā€˜suicideā€™ that was murderā€¦ the mystery of the absurdly cheap flatā€¦ a suspicious death in a locked gun-roomā€¦ a million dollar bond robberyā€¦ the curse of a pharaohā€™s tombā€¦ a jewel robbery by the seaā€¦ the abduction of a Prime Ministerā€¦ the disappearance of a bankerā€¦ a phone call from a dying manā€¦ and, finally, the mystery of the missing will.

What links these fascinating cases? Only the brilliant deductive powers of Hercule Poirot!

The unfortunate thing about this collection of short stories (from my perspective at least) is that unfortunately, Poirot’s fairly dense sidekick Hastings is a major player in each. Poirot himself is not so bad in the short stories of Agatha Christie’sĀ Poirot Investigates, and even Hastings doesn’t have much room to make an ass of himself, but I still don’t like the character.

There are some interesting mysteries here, but I can’t say any of them really jumped out at me and stuck in my memory. The one where Poirot recounts a case where he fails and Hastings gently tries to pierce his ego afterwards made me laugh, though.

Another thing to be wary of with Agatha Christie is the casual racism that gets sprinkled around. I noticed it quite a bit in these short stories.

Rating: 3/5

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6 responses to “Review – Poirot Investigates”

      • Faranae

        Me, I’m the one. He’s in 8 (of 33) of the novels and this collection, so it’s not that bad! He disappears farther on into the series. He’s so much better in the Suchet show, although I think I find him less annoying than you. XD

        Reply
  2. Larissa Veloso

    I’m a big Agatha Christie fan. I never gave much notice to Hastings, though… To me he’s just a backdrop of the stories – or maybe he wasn’t present in the books I’ve read?

    Reply
    • Nicky

      He’s the narrator of The Mysterious Affair At Styles, The Murder on the Links and Poirot Investigates, so it sounds weird to me to consider him the “backdrop” of the stories! He’s constantly “falling in love” with a pretty face, commenting about what a fool he thinks Poirot is, and jumping to weird conclusions while thinking himself very clever, which is why I find him unbearable as a character.

      Reply
  3. Larissa Veloso

    Yeah, I think he wasn’t present in the books I read (or I don’t remember lol). I have The Mysterious Affair next on my TBR, and now I’ll might be a little biased against him. We’ll see…

    Reply

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