Christmas by Agatha Christie

If you are a mystery fan, Christmas by Agatha Christie is a book for you. Her books are easy and entertaining with excellent plots. Check it out!

Christmas by Agatha Christie

 

Title: “Christmas.”

Author: Agatha Christie

Genre: Mystery – Investigation – Crime

Publisher: William Morrow; Reprint edition (October 25, 2011)

Release: 1938 (first)

Format: Kindle, Paperback

Pages:272

Other Titles:

4 and a half stars

The Book

It’s Lee family’s dreadful Christmas holiday reunion. The event is shattered by a deafening noise and squeaky scream. On the second floor, the tyrant, Simeon Lee, is dead in a pool of blood.

When Hercule Poirot comes to assist, he finds an atmosphere of animosity and no grieving at all. Everybody seems to be as good a suspect as the next person. Not to his brilliant mind!

 

Character archetype functions: (your suggestions are welcome)

Spoiler

Protagonist: Colonel Johnson, Chief Constable

 

Antagonist: Sinister lady

 

Guardian: Hercule Poirot, the Belgian

 

Contagonist: Superintendent Sugden, the investigating police officer
Sidekick: Colonel Johnson (to Poirot)

 

Skeptic: George Lee, Simeon’s son
Reason: Sinister Lady and Sugden Emotion: Lee’s relatives
Main Char: Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective Impact Char: (your suggestion is welcome)

This is what I’ve come with regarding the main archetypes. If you have any ideas about it, please leave a comment.

[collapse]

 

Plot development:

slight spoiler

Act 1 Poirot is living his normal life and is invited to a Christmas event.
Trigger/POA At the event,  the host dies mysteriously.
Act 2 Investigation
Mid-Point The balloon
Act 3 Poirot checks his theory (as told  during the climax)
Climax Poirot confronts the suspects and explains the murder.
Act 4 Last considerations in a usual Poirot ending

[collapse]

The Author

Born in 1890, Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time. She created the detective Hercule Poirot in her debut novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920). With a total of eighty novels and short-story collections over six decades, her books have sold more than a 2 billion copies worldwide. She died in 1976.

 

Review

Agatha Christie wrote this a crime investigation book in 1938. The book was published under different titles:

  • “Hercule Poirot’s Christmas”
  • “Murder for Christmas”
  • “A Holiday for Murder”

The plot presents detective Hercule Poirot investigating the murder of a wealthy old man.

Simeon Lee invites his family, sons, and granddaughter,  for a Christmas event at his home for a few days. It all seems the gathering is a helpless effort to settle right terms between family members.

Stephen Farr arrives unexpectedly, claiming to be the son of his former partner; Tension lingers around the house.

A  furniture commotion and a horrible scream in the old man’s bedroom occurs to set everyone as potential murder suspects.

They have to break the door down to get inside the locked the room. There, they find the old man lying dead on the floor with a cut throat in a pool of blood.

Called to investigate, Poirot faces the usual questions:

Who killed the victim?

How was it done from inside a locked room?

What happened to the missing diamonds?

What about the strange rubber triangle and the peg found on the crime scene?

The nature of that strange family leads Hercule Poirot to unexpected conclusions that go way back to the victim’s past.

slight spoiler

Avoiding a suspicious murder attempt, Poirot is able to expose numerous characters that are deceivers and solves the crime.

[collapse]

 

  • cultural relevance
  • entertainment
  • readability
  • Our personal rating
Sending
User Review
5 (1 vote)

 

[cta id=’1972′]

 

4 thoughts on “Christmas by Agatha Christie

  • 2016-07-23 at 5:00 pm
    Permalink

    What a true classic! Agatha Christie was such a prolific and talented writer. More younger people need to start to read her works. I have read only a couple of her novels, but it sounds like I would enjoy this Christmas novel. Thanks for pointing this specific one out as I needed something entertaining to read. Thanks.

    Reply
    • 2016-07-26 at 6:37 am
      Permalink

      Hello, Dan,

      Thanks for sharing your opinion. Enjoy the book.

      Cheers!

      Reply
  • 2016-11-11 at 8:10 am
    Permalink

    I read Christmas by Agatha Christie when I was a teenager. In fact, After my pre-teens, I grew up reading this notorious British author. She is a master of the mystery genre. Great article!

    Reply
    • 2016-11-11 at 9:42 am
      Permalink

      Hello, Ollie,

      Thanks for sharing you opinion. Cheers!

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *