Hercule Poirot's Christmas by Agatha Christie

Christmas Eve, and the Lee family’s reunion is shattered by a deafening crash of furniture and a high-pitched wailing scream. Upstairs, the tyrannical Simeon Lee lies dead in a pool of blood, his throat slashed. When Hercule Poirot offers to assist, he finds an atmosphere not of mourning but of mutual suspicion. It seems everyone had their own reason to hate the old man. . . .

I totally failed to guess the killer!

Poirot was staple TV viewing when I was a teenage so the image of the character is burned well into my consciousness (thank you David Suchet) - so reading an Agatha Christie book tends to come with very easy imagination and even accents for characters.

The story is well built, told in a way that makes me think I should have been able to deduce the killer myself (and something I've always wondered about murder mystery stories) and does a good job of flipping my expectations on its head!

Solid stuff.