Agatha's Short-Story Feast: The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding | 1960

(image from here) "This book of Christmas fare may be described as 'The Chef's Selection.' I am the Chef!" -Agatha Christie's Foreward for The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, p. 7 The Sum of It: It's short stories for me this week! I actually enjoyed this collection quite a bit, mostly because of the love you can tell Agatha put into the curation of the collection (more on that later.) This collection features mostly Poirot, with...

Hotel for Dogs: Mrs. McGinty's Dead | 1951

How great is this first edition cover? Found it here "But talk, however light, however idle, gives away, inevitably, the sort of person you are. The wise criminal would never open his mouth, but criminals are seldom wise and usually vain and they talk a good deal -- and so most criminals are caught." -Mrs. McGinty's Dead, p. 54 The Sum of It: This story begins as Poirot leaves a French restaurant he has discovered and is standing on the...

One Wedding & Two Funerals: Crooked House | 1948

(image from here) “I've never met a murderer who wasn't vain... It's their vanity that leads to their undoing, nine times out of ten. They may be frightened of being caught, but they can't help strutting and boasting and usually they're sure they've been far too clever to be caught.”  ― Crooked House, p. 87 The Sum of It: IT'S SO GOOD! K, got that out of the way. This one is narrated by Charles, a tall cutie-patootie who falls in love...

Unsolved Mysteries: Ordeal by Innocence | 1958

(image from here) "All right. It's your say so - and you're sticking to it. Jacko didn't kill her. Very well then - who did kill her? You haven't thought about that one, have you? Think about it now. Think about it - and then you'll begin to see what you're doing to us all..." -Micky Argyle, Ordeal by Innocence, p. 42 The Sum of It: I'm going through a phase in this Year of Agatha project where I'm reading a lot of her books that have my most...

Rick Steves' Agatha Christie: They Came to Baghdad | 1951

Image from the delightful Pulpcovers.com "When Crosbie had gone Dakin sat bent over his desk. He murmured under his breath, 'They came to Baghdad...' On the blotting pad he drew a circle and wrote under it Baghdad -- Then, dotted around it, he sketched a camel, an aeroplane, a steamer, a small puffing train -- all converging on the circle. Then on the corner of the pad he drew a spider's web. In the middle of the spider's web he wrote a name..."...

Bonus Read: Ruth Ware's The Woman in Cabin 10 | 2016

(image from here) "It was the noise of the veranda door in the next cabin sliding gentle open. I held my breath, straining to hear. And then there was a splash. Not a small splash. No, this was a big splash. The kind of splash made by a body hitting water." -The Woman in Cabin 10, p. 85 The Sum of It: Mystery-loving friends: do yourselves a favor and find yourself a copy of Ruth Ware's The Woman in Cabin 10 just as soon as you possible...

The Nun Motif: After the Funeral | 1953

(image from here) "It shows you, Madame, the dangers of conversations. It is a profound belief of mine that if you can induce a person to talk to you for long enough, on any subject whatever! sooner or later they will give themselves away." -Hercule Poirot, After the Funeral, p. 283 The Sum of It: We are back to good old fashioned big family murder this week with After the Funeral (also called Funerals are Fatal). The story begins with...