Hercule Poirot's Christmas (Hercule Poirot #20)

Hercule Poirot's Christmas (Hercule Poirot #20)

3.82 of 5 stars 3.82  ·  rating details  ·  8,630 ratings  ·  428 reviews
On the night before Christmas, cruel, tyrannical, filthy rich Simeon Lee is found in his locked bedroom with his throat cut. Now Hercule Poirot must put his detective powers to the test to solve one of his most chilling cases - and to prevent a clever killer from spilling more blood.
Paperback, 335 pages
Published September 1st 2001 by HarperCollins Publishers (first published 1938)
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Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)
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Almeta
Just finished this one, while on a Christie marathon for the month of January. (Although the title was A Holiday for Murder in my version.)

I just knew that there was going to be a bizzare twist (view spoiler)[about more brothers or sisters (hide spoiler)]. Still there were enough red herrings to make the conclusion a big surprise!

Christie is always entertaining. A mystery buffs delight!
Wirotomo Nofamilyname
Salah satu buku karya Agatha Christie yang sangat saya suka.

Agatha Christie's style banget. banyak orang berkumpul di sebuah rumah untuk merayakan Natal, dan tiba-tiba sang pemilik rumah meninggal, terbunuh.

Saya ingat ketika saya membaca buku ini pertama kali, saya sampai mengulang membacanya untuk memastikan fakta-fakta yang sepertinya jadi penentu tapi terlewat oleh saya. Dan ternyata memang benar, Agatha Christie dengan "liciknya" menempatkan clue pelayan rumah mengeluhkan seperti dejavu saat...more
Hannah
Rating Clarification: 2.5 Stars
Alternate title: Hercule Poirot's Christmas
English Mysteries Club Group Read

Not as good as some of the other Christie's I've read, but to the plus side it was a quick read and kept my interest. I guessed whodunnit 3/4 of the way through (which I rarely ever do). It seemed as though Christie slapped me in the face to make it obvious who it was, so much so that I second guessed myself that it could be that person. However, I didn't guess Howdunnit until the reveal.

W...more
LJ
First Sentence: Stephen pulled up the collar of his coat as he walked briskly along the platform.

Elderly, wealthy Simon Lee has gathered his family around him for a Christmas reunion. Hardly a joyous celebration when the guests hear furniture being overturned, an inhuman scream and find Simon murdered in his locked room. Visiting a friend in the area, Hercule Poirot offers to assist in solving this case where everyone had reason to wish the old man dead.

Reading Christie is always a delight. Ther...more
Kim

I read a lot of my mother’s Agatha Christie novels when I was a teenager. They’re what got me into reading crime fiction. However, my interest in Christie didn’t survive into adulthood and it’s been years since I’ve picked up a Hercule Poirot or a Miss Marple novel.

This particular work, the December 2012 read for the English Mysteries Club group, was probably not the best novel for me to choose as a way of going back to Agatha Christie. She must have written much, much better books. I don’t rem...more
Catherine
Dec 27, 2012 Catherine rated it 4 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: cozy mystery readers
Shelves: mystery
Hercule Poirot's Christmas

Agatha Christie

1938

****


"When multi-millionaire Simeon Lee unexpectedly invites his family to gather at his home for Christmas, the gesture is met with suspicion by many of the guests. Simeon is not given to family sentiment, and not all of the family are on good terms with one another. To make things worse, he has invited the black sheep of the family, Harry, and Simeon’s granddaughter, Pilar, whom none of them has ever met before. Simeon is intent on playing a deadly a...more
Kelly
I haven't read an Agatha Christie in quite some time. I have been a fan since reading Roger Ackroyd. I am glad that this was the holiday pick of one of my Goodreads groups.

It is a classic closed room who done it with good pacing and suspense. I very much enjoyed it. Nice quick read!
Leslie
I just finished re-reading this & found that even though I recalled who did it, I enjoyed it as much as I remembered. Christie did a wonderful job of placing all the necessary clues for the reader without making the solution obvious.
Steve
Rich, old Mr Lee has invited all his family back for Christmas, some of whom have not been home for decades. They weren� t a particularly harmonious, indeed, many of them hated each other, but nevertheless they all went home for Christmas. It seemed to go all right for a while, but then Mr Lee was brutally murdered in his own bedchamber. Everyone has a motive, but who killed him? The clues point first one way, then another, and then yet another, until almost all of them are suspects. Hercule Poi...more
Harini Padmanabhan
I stumble across a holiday for murder in a used book store and the book blurb caught me by surprise. I started reading Christie when I was in my early teens and had finished most of her books by the time I went to college. One of the first tasks I set for myself after I started earning was to collect all her books. Here it was - a book I was sure I did not have let alone read and I bought it without bothering to leaf through the pages. No surprise it was a book I'd read and it was just so disapp...more
Christine
Wealthy Simeon Lee invites his family over for a traditional English Christmas. It is not a benevolent gesture however, as Simeon plans to play a cruel game with everyone's emotions by pitting them against each other and threatening to change his will. Tensions rise when Simeon's youngest and estranged son, Harry, arrives. As well as Simeon's granddaughter Pilar, who no one has met before. The stress in the house continues to rise when the son of Simeon's old business partner shows up unexpected...more
Angie Palau
This book was one of a few worthwhile-sounding Christmas reads remaining for Book Club to read for December, and we jumped on it when we discovered it (not that it is a new publication by any means, just not a title we'd heard of). It was a fun romp, and certainly not the standard, treacly, Christmas story (not that we expected such).

It was a fast-paced, extremely easy murder mystery, well suited to the fast paced, distracting time frame during which I was trying to read it! I have relatively l...more
Dan
This is a shining example of the genius of Agatha Christie. It's so typically Christie and wonderfully done.

Simeon Lee invites his assorted to the family home to bring the family together for what he suspects may be his last Christmas. Typically he doesn't make it and is found murdered in a room locked from the inside. It can only be someone in the house at the time but with so many guests the possibilities are endless. It's up to Poirot to once again get to the bottom of it all.

My favourite t...more
Judy
Beware insisting that all of your children have to come home for Christmas. Especially when some of them haven't been home for years and there is so much family dysfunction that you could cut the tension with a knife. But Simeon Lee does just that. He also introduces a missing granddaughter, insults his sons and their wives, announces that he is cutting off their allowances, and threatens to change his will. Happy Holidays! Then one evening, everyone hears furniture crashing and a horrible noise...more
Cheryl
HERCULE POIROT'S CHRISTMAS will be one to remember, but not for the usual trappings of the season. This Agatha Christie mystery is devoid of Yuletide greetings, family celebrations, or the rekindling of old ties. Instead England is portrayed as dark, smoky and foreboding as millionare Simeon Lee insists his four unlikely sons and their wives join him for the day.

There will be no gifts, in fact, Lee plans to take them away! The surprises are twofold. First, the granddaughter the family has never...more
Tomas
When multi-millionaire Simeon Lee unexpectedly invites his family to gather at his home for Christmas, the gesture is met with suspicion by many of the guests. Simeon is not given to family sentiment, and not all of the family are on good terms with one another. To make things worse, he has invited the black sheep of the family, Harry, and Simeon’s granddaughter, Pilar, whom none of them has ever met before. Simeon is intent on playing a deadly and sadistic game with his family. An unexpected gu...more
Margaryta
This book caught me off guard by the murder and how it had been all organized. I really should be more careful next time and keep my mind wide open to any possibilities.

The plot of the book seemed medicore at first so I didn't pay too much attention, which I later regretted when things had begun to get more interesting and turned the other way like I had not expected them to.

Agatha Christie's writing continues to further amaze me, not only with the rich imagination and creativity put into the wh...more
Laurel
This is out of order, as Murder for Xmas, aka Holiday for Murder, aka Hercule Poirot's Xmas, was writen in 1939. However, I re-read it every Christmas, so it's fresh in my mind and I may as well review it now. This is one of her greats! Even though she deliberately made it a "bloody" murder per her nephew's request, it's still as "cozy" as can be--a locked-room murder in a fabulous English country manor house. There was a tradition, during her lifetime, of having a "Christie for Christmas"--that...more
Iris
Agatha Christie wrote Hercule Poirot’s Christmas for her brother-in-law after he complained to her, asking for a “good violent murder with lots of blood.” An old curmudgeon dies a violent, overly-bloody death and his family members, whom he has gathered together for Christmas, are the only suspects. Luckily for the innocent, Hercule Poirot also happens to be in the neighborhood and has the mystery solved within a few days.

Agatha Christie does a wonderful job of presenting characters and hiding...more
Mazel
Pour la première fois depuis vingt ans, le vieux Siméon Lee a décidé de réunir tous ses enfants pour les fêtes de fin d'année.

Le 24 décembre, on le trouve sauvagement assassiné dans sa chambre, Tout le monde, évidemment, détestait ce vieillard cynique :

Alfred et sa femme pour la tyrannie qu'il exerçait sur leur couple,

Harry pour les humiliations dont il a abreuvé sa mère,

George pour la rente - trop parcimonieuse à son goût - qu'il lui sert,

Harry, le fils prodigue, pour le mépris dans lequel...more
Robert
'Tis the Christmas break so a good time for pleasure reading. After knocking off a book or two, I was fiddling around here at GR. I had joined another book club that interested me. I read the book for the month. I am enamored with book clubs although I am not particularly good at participating.

Nevertheless, I began reading through the various groups I belong to here. So many duplications. I began paring down. I left the most recently joined group and the mystery group I joined some time ago. I a...more
F.R.
I was pondering, whilst reading ‘Hercule Poirot’s Christmas’, which quality must exist to make Dame Agatha’s books – for all her weaknesses as an author – so readable. And I’ve come to the conclusion that that quality is probably ‘consistency’.

In another writer’s work – say, for example, Raymond Chandler’s – a scant description, a thin characterisation or a stretch of dialogue which bears virtually no resemblance to any conversation ever had between human beings, would immediately strike a duff...more
Ingrid Fasquelle
Sans être un chef d'oeuvre, Le Noël d'Hercule Poirot est un roman au suspense captivant. Qui a tué le vieux Mr Lee ? Le lecteur devra faire fonctionner ses méninges à plein régime pour démêler l'inextricable pelote d'énigmes imaginée par la Reine du crime...

Car dans cette enquête classique (mais néanmoins efficace), c'est Agatha Christie qui mène la danse ! Elle multiplie les indices et les rebondissements et instille le doute et la tension dans l'esprit du lecteur. A force de soupçons, celui-ci...more
Dany
Nada como un asesinato para alimentar el espíritu navideño!

La historia trata de un viejo multimillonario ya inválido y enfermo que vive en una mega mansión con uno de sus hijos, la señora de este último, y los criados. Para Navidad, decide invitar a todos sus hijos y sus mujeres (que llevan años peleados, por diversas razones) a pasar las fiestas en familia, pero no por la bondad de su corazón o porque los eche de menos, sino que la verdadera razón de la invitación es para hacerlos rabiar, hace...more
Smitha
Reading (or rather listening to) a Christie mystery after a gap of few months was a refreshing change. I thoroughly enjoyed the narrative and my time spent with mundane chores like ironing and treadmilling just flew away. This is a Christmas mystery involving the death of an impish, malevolent patriarch who supposedly made a lot of enemies while building up his fortune and who was a lady's man with many illegitimate children, so far unacknowledged. He had 5 legitimate heirs, the single daughter...more
Tonsina
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Jane
Where I got the book: my local library. An English Mysteries book club read.

Old, rich Simeon Lee has summoned the estranged members of his family to his home for a family Christmas but, as daughter-in-law Hilda points out, it's more in the spirit of making trouble than that of reconciliation. He makes sure, for instance, that his family members hear him telling his lawyer he's going to change his will, which is music to the ears to some and the knell of doom to others. So it's hardly surprising...more
Book Concierge
A classic locked-room mystery. Curmudgeonly Simeon Lee has called all his descendants to the manor for Christmas. He plans to change his will – or does he only plan to stir the pot, getting them all riled up and at each other’s throats for his own amusement? Makes little difference what he intended, as no one is amused; and someone is upset enough to kill the old man. But how? And who did it?

Everyone heard the crashing furniture and Simeon’s anguished cry, but when they ran to his room it was l...more
the never-ending library
Curl up this Christmas with a mince pie, steaming mug of mulled wine, your e-reader of choice and dive in to this baffling whodunit.

Arguably literature’s finest sleuth, the idiosyncratic Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is a treasured gem of the murder mystery genre. In this Christmas special he assists the local police force in the murder of a cantankerous patriarch who, in the spirit of more ill will than good, called together his dysfunctional family for the festive period and was found with...more
M.
The basic plot of this gem is not unusual -- Christmas at the family manse is marred by murder -- but its resolution is simply brilliant.

Christie sets up a seemingly impossible crime: nasty old tyrant Simeon Lee gets his throat slit from ear to ear in his second floor room. Family and staff hear the fracas and race upstairs only to find the door locked. Once it is opened, the only occupant is the dead man. It soon become apparent that the killer could not have exited via the windows, so how did...more
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Hercule Poirot's Christmas (Hercule Poirot #20)
Hercule Poirot's Christmas (Hercule Poirot #20)
A Holiday for Murder (Mass Market Paperback)
Hercule Poirot's Christmas (Pembunuhan di Malam Natal)
Hercule Poirot's Christmas: A Holiday Mystery (Hardcover)

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Agatha Christie also wrote romance novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, and was occasionally published under the name Agatha Christie Mallowan.

Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in Torquay, Devon, England, U.K., as the youngest of three. The Millers had two other children: Margaret Frary Miller (1879–1950), called Madge, who was eleven years Agatha's senior, and Louis Montant Miller (1880...more
More about Agatha Christie...
And Then There Were None Murder on the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot, #10) The Mysterious Affair At Styles (Hercule Poirot #1) Murder at the Vicarage (Miss Marple, #1) Death on the Nile (Hercule Poirot #17)

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“It is the quietest and meekest people who are often capable of the most sudden and unexpected violences for the reason that when their control does snap, it goes entirely. (Hercule Poirot)” 8 people liked it
“In conversation, points arise! If a human being converses much, it is impossible for him to avoid the truth! (Hercule Poirot)” 6 people liked it
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