Hercule Poirot's Christmas by Agatha Christie

Hercule Poirot’s Christmas

by Agatha Christie

It seems odd to say it, but it was very comforting to read this murder mystery. I read quite a lot of Agatha Christie novels when I was in my middle school years. I never forgot the highly dramatic production of The Witness for the Prosecution our high school put on or the production of The Mousetrap that I was in. (Of course, I played the old lady, Mrs. Boyle.)

Christie’s standalone novels The Secret of Chimneys and They Came to Baghdad were a couple of my favorites but I also greatly enjoyed her little old knitting granny detective, Miss Jane Marple, and Hercule Poirot mysteries.

Hercule Poirot is Agatha Christie’s Belgian detective with the big mustache who uses his “little grey cells” to solve mysteries. They are usually murders, as in The Murder on the Orient Express. (I highly enjoyed and recommend the current movie from Kennth Branagh, by the way.)

Hercule Poirot, and behind him, the author Agatha Christie, were students of human nature and what people were likely to do or could not help doing.

In this case, Hercule is visiting his friend in the country, Colonel Johnson, Chief Constable of Middleshire, when Simeon Lee is murdered in his house.

Simeon Lee has called his children home for Christmas. Alfred Lee and wife Lydia live in the house with Simeon Lee already. David Lee and his wife Hilda arrive along with George Lee, M.P. for Westeringham, and his wife Magdalene. The black sheep of the family, Harry Lee, arrives as well. Pilar Estravados has also been invited to take up residence at the house, possibly long term. She is Simeon’s granddaughter, daughter of the deceased Jennifer and her father, who died in prison. Of course there are the usual house staff, Tressilian, and valet, Horbury. We also have an unexpected visitor in Stephen Farr, who is the son of Simeon’s partner in South Africa. He just happened to be passing through and called on Simeon then was asked to stay for Christmas.

Yes, Simeon Lee has called his family home for Christmas, but it isn’t a family reunion. He’s a manipulator who loves to make trouble. He has pushed someone over the line this time, but who?

There are some very nice little twists and turns with this case and I’m not sure it can be figured out until Poirot gives his reveal of the facts we are missing at the end of the book, but I enjoy being along for the ride. It is a different time and place but the character of people is not all that different. Christie, and Poirot, make it fun to examine the motivations.

12 Days at Bleakly Manor by Michelle Griep (Guest post by Tarren Young)

12 Days at Bleakly Manor

Michelle Griep

This book absolutely stole my heart! I passed it on the end cap in our library for several weeks before and during National Novel Writing Month but never picked it up. Then, at the last minute, I realized I did not have anything at home to read for the holiday theme. Shock of all shocks, my husband suggested reading the same one I read last year for the December theme -  gasp! (Seriously, ten years together, and he doesn’t know me better than that by now? Tsk, tsk!)

Anyway, I decided to download a sample on my Kindle to see if I would like it. For the first two pages, it seemed to hold my attention, but I am not usually one to read and have it keep my interest for long on my Kindle, so I decided to go to the store and see what other options they had before committing to buying the book. The store had one last copy of it on their shelves in paperback with deckled edges, for that added charm. I stood there reading the first chapter again and well into the second, falling in love with the writing style and the characters from the beginning!

There is so much I loved about this story that it’s hard to know where to start. The writing style is easy to read, but the author makes you feel as if you are reading something that truly is in the style of Charles Dickens without having purple prose. There is just the right amount of description without it bogging down the story. The writing style makes the story flow incredibly well with nice pacing!

I loved the characters in this story! In my own stories, I am character driven but my favorite character in this book actually was not the main character, Clara Chapman, but another lady by the name of Ms. Scurry, who has eight pet mice. Clara finds that absolutely appalling, but still manages to choke down her disgust every time she is around Miss Scurry in order to find friendship.

Ah, now we come to the plot. Miss Chapman is summoned on Christmas Eve to leave her dying aunt’s bedside to attend a traditional, yet peculiar, 12 Days of Christmas holiday. If she stays the entire 12 days, she will be awarded a monetary sum of five hundred pounds.  This would enable her to take care of herself after her aunt passes, as she has no husband or potential suitor. She does not have a husband, though she should have, because a year previously, she was left at the altar, turning her heart hard against the man she once loved who betrayed her.

But the mystery deepens and her shock and anger get the best of her when he is one of the guests invited to stay for the 12 days at this mansion known as Bleakly Manor. With all honesty, I don’t blame her for her reaction at all. I probably would have done the same.

There is a lot at stake for the several different characters, of diverse personalities, that come together under one roof for 12 days. They, of course, are allowed outside the manor, but not allowed off the manor grounds. If they leave the grounds, they forfeit the prize.

It was days later, after looking at the bottom of the back cover, that I noticed the book is listed as Fiction/Christian/Historical/Holidays. Fiction, check. Historical, check. Christian? Huh. Now, I usually do not read Christian fiction as I find it often lacks in well-developed characters, a steady, exciting plot, or any real tension or problem that the characters have to overcome. I have only read one truly phenomenal Christian Fiction book, until now. The author also does not bash the reader over the head with the ideology of Christianity. She has constructed a wonderful story with realistic characters in a time frame that I adore. There is mystery, mayhem, tension and characters that I want to strangle! (Don’t worry, I can’t because he’s fictional! I never would strangle anyone anyways.) But isn’t that the mark of a great writer, someone who can get you not only interested in the characters but be invested in them? Feel empathy/sympathy for them?

Will all the characters get what they came for during their stay at Bleakly Manor? Will they all survive against each other? Will they survive at all?

Overall, the last chapter and a half did feel a bit rushed, and the very ending itself was the only thing that did not feel true to character for either of the two characters that are conversing, but the rest of the story more than makes up for an ending that is a bit lacking. I still give this story 4.5 stars.