Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1938) by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1938), alternatively published as Murder for Christmas and A Holiday for Murder, is the quintessential country house mystery novel, conventional to the point of seeming stereotypical, but the story of "a particularly crude and brutal murder" on Christmas Eve is actually a subtle parody – gently poking at detective story tropes and cliches. It ticks every box of what outsiders believe the Golden Age detective story was all about. Christie brought a great deal of ingenuity, even originality, to the stock situation of the tyrannical patriarch murdered shortly after announcing his intention to make a new will.

I wanted to reread Hercule Poirot's Christmas for ages, but, over the last decade, a lot of once obscure, long out-of-print Christmas mysteries returned to print. Such as Brian Flynn's The Murders Near Mapleton (1929), Moray Dalton's The Night of Fear (1931), C.H.B. Kitchin's Crime at Christmas (1934), Georgette Heyer's Envious Casca (1941) and Francis Duncan's Murder for Christmas (1949), which in addition to several short stories and anthologies delayed revisiting Christie's holiday classic. I've very fond memories of Hercule Poirot's Christmas as it was the first Golden Age mystery I remember solving. And when I say "solving," I mean instinctively guessed the right solution without noticing, or appreciating, the skilled plotting and clueing.

Simeon Lee is a shrunken, frail old invalid, but, during his younger days, Old Simeon was a vigorous young man without scrupulous who lied, cheated, stole and cultivated "a bad reputation with women." While he was not exactly a crook, Old Simeon's "morals were nothing to boast about" with "a queer revengeful streak” who “waited years to get even with someone who'd done him a nasty turn.” So "the kind of man you might say had sold his soul to the devil and enjoyed the bargain." A bargain that left him "a millionaire twice over" when he retired from the South African diamond trade. Now he has summoned his scattered, slightly dysfunctional family to come celebrate Christmas at Gorston Hall. Alfred Lee is "the good dutiful stay-at-home stick-in-the-mud son" who's devoted to his father, but his wife, Lydia, calls it slavery – bemoaning that they have no independence or lives of their own. David Lee was as devoted to his late mother as his brother is to their father and blamed his father for her death, which is why he left the home after she passed. But his wife, Hilda, convinced him to accept the Christmas invitation. George Lee is a Member of Parliament and the essence of respectability, but he has a much younger wife, Magdalene, who has a very expensive taste. So his household is entirely financed by his father. Harry Lee is the prodigal son who, nearly twenty years ago, went off with "several hundred pounds that didn't belong to him" and left a note saying he was going to see the world. Miss Pilar Estravados is the daughter of Old Simeon's only daughter, Jennifer, who had married a Spaniard against his wishes. But now he's very eager to welcome his long-lost granddaughter back into the family. Finally, there's a last-minute addition to the Christmas party, Stephen Farr, who's the son of Simeon's old business partner in South Africa.

Hercule Poirot is spending the Christmas holiday nearby as a guest of Colonel Johnson, Chief Constable of Middleshire, who sit next to a warm fire and discuss whether Christmas is an unlikely season for crime. Poirot believes that there's "a great deal of hypocrisy" around Christmastime as families and friends, who have been separated throughout the year, assemble under one roof. So people can feel strained to be amiable and believes it "highly probable that dislikes that were before merely mild and disagreements that were trivial might suddenly assume a more serious character." Concluding that when "you dam the stream of natural behaviour, mon ami, sooner or later the dam bursts and a cataclysm occurs."

That's more, or less, what has been happening at Gorston Hall. Simeon Lee has been amusing himself by probing old wounds, promising to reduce allowances and telephoned his lawyer in front of his family to tell him he wanted to make a new will. So basically a detective story character who went out of his way to get murdered.

On Christmas Eve, a crashing of china and the overthrowing of furniture is heard coming from Simeon's room, which is followed by "a horrible high wailing scream that died away in a choke or gurgle." When the door is busted open, the family finds Simeon Lee's body, weltering in a pool of his own blood, on the hearthrug in front of a blazing fire. His throat had been savagely cut! The room is a disorderly mess of splintered vases, overturned furniture and "so much blood." Two things about Simeon Lee's murder needs to be highlighted, before going on with the review. Firstly, it's an uncommonly bloody murder for Christie. The bloodiest since Murder on the Orient Express (1934) that would not be matched until After the Funeral (1952), which Christie explained in the book's dedication. Christie's brother-in-law, James, had complained that her murders were getting too refined and "yearned for a good violent murder with lots of blood." Go read some lurid horror stories, James! The detective story is not intended to quench your thirst for blood. Secondly, I never rated Hercule Poirot's Christmas very highly as a locked room mystery as the problem of the locked door is immediately solved, "an ordinary pair of pliers would do it," but had forgotten the locked door served another purpose and how it became a full-blown impossible murder again during the closing stages – only to be immediately solved again. I agree with Robert Adey in Locked Room Murders (1991) that "this book couldn't show more clearly the difference in approach between Christie and Carr to the locked room problem." I also liked how Superintendent Sugden solved the practical side of the locked room problem (spotting the scratches on the end of key-barrel), while Poirot explained the psychological and time aspect of trick. Very well done!

However, the locked room-trick is only one cog in the machine of the plot that only comes into play when the murder is discovered and eventually solved. Where the story triumphs, as to be expected from Christie, is the who-and why.

Christie was a natural when it came to clueing and misdirection. No debate there. What has astonished me ever since I began rereading some of her classics, like Murder on the Orient Express, Death in the Clouds (1935) and Evil Under the Sun (1941), is an unrivaled talent to openly, and audaciously, allude to the truth – dropped in a casual conversation or simple remark. A talent that perfectly lends itself to conversational-style detective novels like Murder on the Orient Express and Hercule Poirot's Christmas. There are two rounds of interviews. Firstly, the official police interviews lead by Superintended Sugden and, secondly, Poirot engaging everyone in conversation. Poirot tells Colonel Johnson "in conversation, points arise" and "if a human being converses much, it is impossible for him to avoid the truth." But never do any of them "drag the marsh" or grind the story down to halt. Christie was very good at writing conversations impregnated with subtle hints and foreshadowing. More importantly, those conversations strengthened the already impressive physical and psychological clues. There are such bizarre, physical clues like "a little triangular piece of pink rubber and a small wooden peg," the wrecked room and an old portrait of a young Simeon Lee. Not to mention a small fortune in stolen, uncut diamonds. I told you this one ticked all of the boxes! But the best clues are definitely the psychological ones. Particularly, the old butler who suffers from déjà vu and "the character of Simeon Lee." So the surprise-twist, when it comes, feels both logical and inevitable.

The murderer's identity, motive and method are as richly clued as they were cleverly hidden, which makes me wish I remembered how I spotted the murderer. When I first read Hercule Poirot's Christmas, I was a neophyte who had no idea a locked room mystery and a closed-circle situation were two completely different things. So no idea how I saw through it at the time.

I wrote in my review of Francis Duncan's previously mentioned Murder for Christmas that the Christmas country house mystery never produced a genuine classic, but had forgotten how good Hercule Poirot's Christmas really is and not yet read Mary Monica Pulver's Original Sin (1991). I can see now why Hercule Poirot's Christmas is the most famous one. Not because it was written by Christie. But because Christie wrote the best, most definitive Christmas country house mystery. One that has often been imitated, but never duplicated (Pulver had her own take on it).

So, all in all, Hercule Poirot's Christmas is a brilliantly played, richly-plotted and seasonal mystery that should be regarded as the detective story's A Christmas Carol. Highly recommended!