Hercule Poirot’s Silent Night by Sophie Hannah

 

New Hercule Poirot Mysteries #5

348 pages

Publisher: HarperCollins

Release date: October 26, 2023

Netgalley

 

Blurb

 CAN HERCULE POIROT SOLVE A BAFFLING MURDER MYSTERY IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS?

It’s 19 December 1931. Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool are called to investigate the murder of a man in the apparent safe haven of a Norfolk hospital ward. Catchpool’s mother, the irrepressible Cynthia, insists that Poirot stays in a crumbling mansion by the coast, so that they can all be together for the festive period while Poirot solves the case. Cynthia’s friend Arnold is soon to be admitted to that same hospital and his wife is convinced he will be the killer’s next victim, though she refuses to explain why.

Poirot has less than a week to solve the crime and prevent more murders, if he is to escape from this nightmare scenario and get home in time for Christmas. Meanwhile, someone else – someone utterly ruthless – also has ideas about what ought to happen to Hercule Poirot . . .

 

Review

For decades, a Christie for Christmas was a given and something readers looked forward to. How delightful that this year we are once again given a seasonal Poirot mystery. Strictly speaking, this title isn’t a Christie, of course. But it is safe to say that without Christie, this book wouldn’t be available to us, so I’ll happily take it.

This is the fifth Hercule Poirot book by Sophie Hannah and it is as good and captivating as the prequels. What I like best about these new Poirot stories is that while Hercule Poirot is his irritatingly charming self, just as Christie created him, and the mysteries are as mystifying as Agatha’s were, Sophie Hannah didn’t attempt to copy or reproduce what has gone before. The most obvious sign of this is Poirot’s new sidekick, Edward Catchpool. I don’t know if he was created to be a combination of Inspector Japp and Captain Hastings, but that is certainly how he comes across to me, and it adds to the sense of continuation I get when I read these stories.

As for this story, the set-up was rather inspired and even after finishing the book I’m still not sure whether Catchpool’s mother asked Poirot to investigate a crime she was only marginally involved with because she wanted it solved for her friend’s sake or because she wanted to spend Christmas with her son. Unsurprisingly, we are faced with what appears to be an impossible murder which, to add to the confusion, is followed by a rather illogical reaction to it.

Reluctantly Poirot and Catchpool travel to the doomed mansion, determined to solve the crime as quickly as possible so that they may return to London in time for their planned Christmas celebrations. Once they arrive at their destination, our two investigators encounter a rather unusual household set-up, as well as an apparently motiveless murder.

I’m not convinced that Sophie Hannah plays as fairly with her readers as Agatha Christie herself did. Whereas with Christie, I often find myself slapping my forehead once the solution is explained, wondering how I could possibly have missed the clues given how (retrospectively) obvious they were, that didn’t really happen while reading Hercule Poirot’s Silent Night. While the guilty party could definitely be determined based on the information shared with the reader, the motive was (mostly) opaque (to me?).

I had one other minor quibble with something that was mentioned in this story. Google, unfortunately, wasn’t able to tell me how aware people in 1931 were of genetics in connection to longevity, but I would have thought ideas like that didn’t become common knowledge until a few decades later. I stand to be corrected.

Quibbles aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this tale. I loved the interactions between Poirot and Catchpool. The behaviour and conversations of the other characters were delightfully weird and over the top, with Catchpool’s mother being in a league of her own when it comes to the lengths she’s willing to go to to get her way. Captivating from start to finish, this story kept me on my toes and provided me with two days of pure reading enjoyment.

When exactly can I have the next New Hercule Poirot mystery?

 

 

The Couple at the Table by Sophie Hannah

 

358 pages

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

#11 Culver Valley Crime

Library

 

Blurb

You're on your honeymoon at an exclusive couples-only resort.

You receive a note, warning you to 'Beware of the couple at the table nearest to yours'. At dinner that night, five other couples are sitting close by, but none of their tables is any nearer or further away than any of the others. It's almost as if someone has set the scene in order to make the warning note meaningless. Why would anyone do that?

You have no idea.

You also don't know that you're about to be murdered, or that once you're dead, all the evidence will suggest that no one there that night could possibly have committed the crime.

So who might be trying to warn you? And who might be about to kill you, and seems certain to get away with it?

Review

 

Six couples.

One honeymoon resort.

An impossible murder.

Trust me to start reading a series of mysteries with title #11. I usually go out of my way to avoid starting anywhere other than at the start, but in this case, it didn’t even occur to me to check before bringing the book home and diving into it. After reading and loving Sophie Hannah’s Hercule Poirot novels, I just didn’t think twice when I saw her name on the cover of this fascinating-sounding book.

Is there such a thing as a slow-burn mystery? Slow-burn is a huge trope in romance, but is the term used for the mystery genre too? Because if it is, I think it applies to this book. Although the murder has happened six months previously, I didn’t get any sense of an (ongoing) investigation until about halfway through the book.

The story in this book alternates between July 2019 and January 2020. In July Jane Brinkwood was murdered in an exclusive resort in what appears to be an impossible murder. Six months later, Lucy, one of the other guests at the resort and the ex-wife of Jane’s new husband, contacts the investigating police officer, Simon Waterhouse in the hope of breathing new life into the case, which appears to have stalled.

Simon Waterhouse, much to the disgust of his superior, hasn’t given up on the case at all, mainly because he and his wife and colleague Charlie, were also guests at the resort at the time. However, Lucy’s action sets in motion a chain of events that will, eventually lead to the solution.

The first part of the book centres mostly on Lucy and Simon and it isn’t until later that we get introduced to the other guests at the resort. In fact, for the first part of the story, it isn’t clear that most of those guests had reasons to at least dislike Jane. For me, the story didn’t really start to flow until all those other voices came into play too. But as soon as it started flowing, the story washed over me like a tsunami; I was hooked and had to finish the book in one long sitting.

And I liked the ending. The solution to the seemingly impossible crime was plausible. Not only that, but it was also somewhat obvious now that it had been explained to me. And yes, I did want to kick myself for missing one or two clues that were hiding in plain sight. Having said that, while the how and the why were very much a mystery (pun intended) until the very end, I figured out the culprit early on. Discovering I had been right was hugely satisfying.

Overall verdict: A very well-plotted mystery featuring fascinating characters, and a wonderful read. I will be diving into more, none Hercule Poirot, books by Sophie Hannah in the not-too-distant future.