Since it’s my favorite Christmas mystery novel, here’s my book review of Murder for Christmas by Agatha Christie. It’s also known under the titles Hercule Poirot’s Christmas and A Holiday for Murder–for some reason when many of Ms. Christie’s books crossed the pond to the U.S., publishers changed the title.
It has all the ingredients you’d expect in a mystery written in 1939–a large, wealthy family riddle with difficult relationships and ugly backstories, a patriarch so nasty that even the kindest person in the family would have a reason to kill him, a seemingly impossible murder, and a brilliant detective. Then Ms. Christie layers over all of that the trimmings of Christmas.
Simeon Lee has asked all his children, most of whom are estranged, their spouses, and one grandchild to come to the family estate for a tradition, English Christmas. All his relations have different reactions to the old man’s invitation and reasons for accepting. Once the family is gathered around, they soon learn Simeon Lee hasn’t mellowed with age. He’s still the vengeful, manipulative, ladies’ man that he’s always been.
When he’s found dead from a cutthroat amid the broken furniture of a terrific fight in his locked bedroom, the local chief constable brings his Christmas house guest, Hercule Poirot, into the investigation.
This is one of Agatha Christie’s best mysteries. The clues are well laid out, the unveiling of the criminal stunning, and but best of all for me, her characters seem much more like real people in this book. Simeon Lee has four sons, each one with their own personalities. His daughter-in-laws are distinct individuals.
The family also acts more like a real-life family. Simeon had not met before his young adult granddaughter Pilar, who had been raised in Spain. When his will is read after he dies, the family finds he left nothing to Pilar. Because everyone had seen that Simeon liked his only grandchild, three of the brothers and their wives decide to take money from their inheritance and give it to Pilar. They know Simeon would have changed his will to leave her something if he’d lived longer. Of course, just like in a real family, someone objects. George, an MP, with an expensive wife refuses. That conflict seems so natural to me. A family is made up of all kinds people–generous, greedy, kind, selfish. It gives a traditional mystery, which can seem very artificial, a nice veneer of reality.
If you read mysteries, what are some of your favorites?
