Gregor

A change in style from previous Poirot adventures, but not a good one in my eyes. This book feels very disjointed, which is not a surprise when you discover that it was originally twelve distinct short stories that were later cobbled together to form one novel. The grander scale is an interesting change of pace, and Poirot's fallibility is appreciated, but that is not enough to warrant a high rating for a novel that even Christie herself thought was poor.

An absolute triumph! I'll be lucky if I read a better whodunnit than this. It's no wonder that this is cited as one of Christie's best works, and is a must-read in my eyes.

An enjoyable collection of short stories involving Poirot and Hastings. It was interesting that the author included a couple of cases where Poirot failed, in one case relying on karma to catch up to the guilty party. I particularly liked one story where Poirot plays up his belief in the supernatural, much to his companions' disbelief. The mystery and tension that builds up over the previous Poirot entries are of course absent here, considering that these are short stories, so they did not grip me in the same way as Christie's earlier offerings. Nonetheless, this was an enjoyable collection and made for very easy reading.

A worthy follow-up to the first Poirot story, this book swaps England for France as the setting. The inclusion of an arrogant rival detective from Paris is a good source of comedy as Hastings is invariably impressed by his industry, only for Poirot to be the one in the right as usual. I found the romantic subplot to be a bit threadbare, although Christie does manage to weave it into the main plot at the end, albeit not a hundred percent satisfactorily. All in all another enjoyable whodunit and I look forward to reading the next.