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Hercule Poirot's Christmas (Hercule Poirot, #20)

Agatha Christie

Start date: December 1, 2022

Finish date: December 31, 2022

Discussion: Group Challenges

Why we're reading this: Finishing off our 2022 Detection Club challenge with a Christie classic.
[close] Finishing off our 2022 Detection Club challenge with a Christie classic.

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Group Challenges

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) by Agatha Christie
By Susan · 16 posts · 18 views

last updated Sep 12, 2025 08:12PM

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) - SPOILER Thread
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What Members Thought

Apr 05, 2017 Nanosynergy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: british, mysteries-thrillers-espionage, series, 2017read, reviewed, fiction, fiction-1930s

Wealthy, elderly, womanizing, Simeon Lee is brutally murdered at Christmas in his locked study. His contentious family is assembled there for the holiday at Mr. Lee's invitation. They break down the door of his study after hearing a violent struggle - falling furniture and breaking dishes - followed by an unearthly scream. They find him dead, throat cut, lots of blood everywhere, and the raw diamonds in his safe missing, but no one in the room. Hercule Poirot partners with a bright, local police ...more

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Dec 20, 2020 Lillian rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I listened to and read several manor/country house mysteries set at Christmas this season. So much so, that I had to read or listen to one at a time, as I was starting to confuse characters. :-D This Poirot mystery wasn't heavy on the festivities. Christmas was merely a backdrop and the reason for people gathering. But it is one of Christie's best locked room mysteries. It is creative and not many people would be able to guess how it was done or who did it. But there are clues and suspects aplen ...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Jan C rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, gr-group-read, re-read, sleuth, 2013

This was a multiple read for me.

Isn't it nice for families to be reminded why they only get together once a year? In my family it was always just bicker, bicker, bicker. How lucky we were not to have a murder! Although there were temptations. But we wouldn't have had as many suspects. [My family isn't really all that bad, as long as we stay away from certain subjects.]

There are more characters in here than in the production shown on PBS. I'm sitting here going, "Who is Stephen Farr?" Well, I fou ...more

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Dec 05, 2022 Teri-K rated it really liked it

Shelves: christmas, mystery-golden-age

There's nothing Christmasy about this story, I'm afraid, but it the murderer is well-concealed. Even though I've read this before and remembered a lot of the revelations I forgot who'd done it. All the clues are there, of course, you just have to fit them together, something I failed to so this time around. The only thing I have against this book if the relatively large caste of characters and the fact that I think it would have benefited from some other action in the middle of the story. There ...more

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