Read Christie Challenge

And Then There Were None (Read Christie Challenge, July 2026): Book Containing the Best-Kept Secret

25th July 2026 by claireladds Leave a Comment

We are in the second half of the year, and I continue to pursue the Read Christie Challenge for 2026. This seems like an apt description for it this month, as the characters in my chosen book for July are precisely that: pursued. And, more specifically, pursued by a completely unknown psychopathic murderer, who has no intention of stopping until every single person is dead.

The book I am talking about is probably one of the most iconic Agatha Christie novels of all: And Then There Were None. The story takes place on an island off the coast of Devon, England, where a group of seemingly disparate people have gathered at the invitation of the mysterious U.N. Owen, who has bought the island. Each one of these individuals has been invited via letter supposedly from an employment agency, or a friend, acquaintance, and so forth. Taken to the island via ferry, they are left to their own devices, together with a married couple who have recently been employed as staff to accommodate the party. But something unites these people: On the first evening, when everyone is gathered, a record begins to play on a hidden gramophone, accusing every single one of the island’s inhabitants of murder. And it is true, in varying degrees, for each one of them, calling into question where one draws the line between blatant murder, and culpability for a death, and where active blame could be construed as passive or indifferent lack of care for another human life.

The pseudonym of their mysterious host, as the people marooned and captive on this stormy island soon come to realise, is terrifyingly close to spelling out ‘unknown’. And this anonymity of the murderer, whose sole intention, it quickly becomes apparent, is to destroy everyone on the island one by one, is at the heart of the plot, and of the essence of the novel. Once victims of U.N. Owen begin to fall, the paranoia of each accused inhabitant, the fear over who will be next, and also the intellectual pursuit of those fighting for survival become the driving force throughout the book for those under threat, and for reader alike. Christie has no intention of letting the reader in on the secret of who the killer is. We also have to suffer the agonies of slow discovery, red herrings, blind allies and the certainty that no one is escaping alive.

The claustrophobic nature of an island they cannot escape, dichotomously housing the ultra-modern home where they are sitting ducks, and the violence of the sea and the storm they prevent them escaping, sets the tone for the real terror of the situation. For, once the ten people have searched the island and found no one else there at all but themselves, it becomes excruciatingly clear that the murderer has to be, and can only be, one of the ten people on the island. And this is the reason I have chosen And Then There Were None as July’s ‘book containing the best-kept secret’. Because it must be one of them. Yet, every time they are sure they know who it is, they are wrong in the most devastating of ways.

Slowly, chapter by chapter, the reader joins the anguish and desperate, paranoid attempts to discover who the killer must be, as the number of accused people reduces, one by one, and in a particular order, dictated by a nursery rhyme which hangs on every inhabitant’s bedroom wall. The tension increases with every death for both the characters and the reader: we are closer to the truth, yet not close enough to prevent more murders. At a basic, human level, it is devastating.

The secret of ‘whodunnit’ is kept right until the very last pages of the novel, and I defy anyone who is encountering this book for the first time to detect the killer on the island. It seems the murder is impossible to discover, unless, of course, as the people stranded on the island believe, that eventually only one will remain: the murderer. Surely? This could quite easily have become a book with no known ending. Thankfully for the reader, Christie adhered to all the rules of fiction as a member of The Detection Club, most notably to play fair with the reader. It is not because Christie broke the rules of mystery fiction that we, as readers, cannot solve the secret of this story. It is because it is meticulously plotted, and the the dialogue and thoughts of the characters are placed there for us to help in finding this secret, if only we know what to do with them.

From a personal standpoint, I have to admit that I find the last few pages of the novel a bit of a stretch in believability with regard to how the secret is revealed, and prefer the revelation, and indeed the clever ending engineering, of the three-part TV film version starring Charles Dance, Sam Neill, Toby Stephens, et al. (if you have not seen it, then I recommend it as a modern-day thriller which equally retains the historical necessities of Christie’s book). This is a personal preference, and takes nothing away from the fact that Christie’s set-up for this incredible, baffling series of deaths perpetrated by ‘unknown’ is an impenetrable as the sea would be in an escape from the island. This book is a masterclass in the fatalistic and unsolvable thriller. Clues are laid to the mindset of the murderer, yet it is phenomenally difficult, even with re-reading, to pin these revealed thoughts to the individual who exacts a form of ‘justice’ meted out meticulously to everyone on the island guilty, but never convicted, of the part they played in someone else’s death. And I mean every one.

If you were the murderer, can you think of a better way to keep the secret of ‘whodunnit’ than that?

Crooked House (Read Christie Challenge, June 2026): Best Book to Read in One Sitting

26th June 2026 by claireladds 1 Comment

It has been a real pleasure to read my chosen book for June’s Read Christie Challenge, as I only have one clear winner in my mind for the book which fits this month’s remit of ‘my choice for best to read in one sitting’. That book is Crooked House.

I have lost count of the number of times I have re-read this book. It has been my go-to Christie choice for a story that commands my entire existence for consecutive hours in a day (and for days afterwards, I have to say, as the directions it takes pack a real punch). At a completely practical level, and in tune with the remit for this month’s challenge, its length (my 1985 Pan version is 160 pages) also makes it ideal to read in a day. I would love to be able to say that I read Crooked House in one sitting this time around. I can’t say that, as ongoing issues with my eyes mean that it is currently impossible for me to spend that length of time reading, to my absolute mortification. I can say from previous experiences of reading this book, however, that it is entirely possible to read it in one sitting, and that I truly believe that the experience of this particular story by doing so is thoroughly immersive and worth the time spent.

So, what is the book about, and what is its big draw for me? The books centres on the Leonides family, at the head of which is Aristide Leonides, in his late eighties, self-made and exceedingly wealthy, and surrounded in his house by all the immediate members of his family: his very young new wife who is detested by the family, his eldest son and his wife, his younger son and spouse, the sister of his first wife who sadly died, and his three grandchildren. It is the eldest grandchild, Sophia, with whom the narrator, Charles Hayward, is in love. With the war over, he now wants to marry her – but Sophia has a problem. Her grandfather has died, and she is certain that it wasn’t due to natural causes. This places suspicion firmly on members of the household, leaving Sophia unable to give Charles a definitive answer to the question of marriage until this has been cleared up. Because, of course, it means she is under suspicion, too.

Charles, son of a high ranking officer at Scotland Yard, is determined to work both alongside the police and also to get to the truth of the matter by pursuing his own independent investigations. But when he goes down to Three Gables (the ‘crooked house’ of the book’s title), there is little he finds which appeases him. Everyone wants to pin the blame on Brenda, the young wife, because that way the murderer wouldn’t be a blood member of the Leonides family. But was it Brenda? The more Charles talks to the family, the more he realises that all of them have reasons for wanting Aristide Leonides dead. Maybe he won’t want the truth at all…

The pacing of this novel is propulsive, so much so that it feels that all the events may well have happened in one day, although that is not the case. This propulsion is compounded, certainly for me, by the way in which every suspect falls under Charles’ investigative gaze with regard to means, motive and opportunity, and then, even when they have been ruled out, it’s often the case that they are ruled back in again with the discovery of a piece of evidence. Its effect is very much a roller-coaster of suspicion, the chances of who could have perpetrated the crime going up and down for each individual about as often as Charles goes up and down the stairs to speak to the different family groupings of the Leonides family!

But, despite this, the clues are laid out clearly, if only you know where to look – and towards whom. If ever there was a darkly unsettling psychological point around which this whole murder hinges, then this book claims it. Grievances in a family, as this novel shows, can run deep, and can be ignored by everyone. Murder brings them to the fore, where it is no longer impossible to dismiss feelings or look the other way, and someone has to do something.

If you are looking for a short read, yet still want to be immersed in a novel, and you love a limited cast confined by the house in which they live, and a myriad of motives for the murder which takes place, then I cannot recommend Crooked House highly enough. Just be prepared for a shock – and for it to live with you while you wrestle with it in your conscience. It certainly lived with me. Maybe I want the ending to be different; maybe I want it to turn out to be someone else; maybe the way it sits uneasily in me is the reason I return to Crooked House again and again.

You might also like:

The Labours of Hercules (Read Christie Challenge, 2026): My choice for best short story collection

The Sittaford Mystery (Read Christie Challenge, 2026): My choice for best opening

Sad Cypress (Read Christie Challenge, 2026): My choice for beloved in my collection

What a Writer Needs According to Agatha Christie and Me

The Labours of Hercules (Read Christie Challenge, May 2026): Best Short Story Collection

26th May 2026 by claireladds 1 Comment

Image shows The Labours of Hercules facing outwards, amid a bookcase full of Agatha Christie books, all on a black background. Text on image reads: Read Christie Challenge 2026, May, my choice for best short story collection - The Labours of Hercules.

May has been ‘short story month’ and yet, ironically, this piece is a long one. I am a huge advocate for the short story in general; this was the form that began my writing career, when I was fortunate enough to get the very first story I wrote (in a serious capacity) published as the winner of a competition. As a lifelong Agatha Christie reader, it has been an immense joy, therefore, to choose and once again devour one of her short story collections for the Read Christie challenge during May. The Christie team chose, very appropriately, ‘my choice for best short story collection’ as the theme for this month.

What constitutes ‘best’, though? Judging any book necessarily involves a huge amount of subjectivity, as what one reader might like another does not enjoy so much, even if they are both readers of that author’s work generally. Over the years, I have really enjoyed reading The Mysterious Mr Quinn, a collection with a slightly speculative edge in which we find Mr Satterthwaite (also a lead character in Three Act Tragedy) assisted by the rather strange character of Mr Quinn. On a different and generally more lighthearted note, my first connection with Tommy and Tuppence Beresford was through the collection of stories, Partners in Crime, in which the duo open a detective agency. To satisfy my dark little soul, I have poured over the stories in Hound of Death numerous times. This is just three of the numerous Christie collections I have enjoyed. However, being the Poirot addict that I am, and also a reader who always wished that he would, one day, find his happy ending with Dame Vera Rossakoff, the unrequited love of his life (and equivalent to ‘the woman’ for Sherlock Holmes or, more particularly the BBC’s Sherlock), I have chosen The Labours of Hercules. This collection houses a story which reunites Poirot with Rossakoff. If you have seen the TV filmic adaptation of the same name starring David Suchet, then maybe you lost your heart to the tragedy of their love story. While the adaptation is a very different animal to the original collection of stories, it it with pure indulgence to this unfulfilled love story that I pick The Labours of Hercules. And that is about as subjective as I could get in deciding what I constitute as ‘best’!

The Labours of Hercules is set up in a very particular way, with a ‘Foreword’, part narrative fiction and part intervention by the author, which I found intriguing. At a plot level, we discover that Poirot is set to retire soon and indulge his wish to grow vegetable marrows (which, indeed, he does in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd). After a conversation with a man named Dr Burton, who calls into question why Poirot should ever have been called Hercule to the point of being derisory as to the detective’s lack of comparison with the Ancient Greek ‘hero’, Christie dismisses the doctor, but not the idea that he leaves behind him. Poirot now considers the notion of Hercules, himself representing a ‘new age’ hero, yet one who will, before retirement, set himself twelve labours of high importance, cases chosen specifically to fit this remit.

I shall, then, take each of Poirot’s self-induced ‘labours’ in the order they appear in the collection.

The Nemean Lion

It is, therefore, quite ironically comical that the first case saved for him by Miss Lemon in his pile of letters is one of complete unimportance. It frustrates and irritates Poirot – until he realises there is something not quite ordinary about the case of a ransomed Pekinese dog. It is the owner’s husband who has communicated with him, and this seems strange. Even stranger is that the dog has already been returned, and the wife paid the ransom money. When questioned by Poirot, Lady Hoggin states that her companion help, a real dog lover who had been granted care of a previous employer’s Pekinese on her death, had been walking the dog and had stopped to admire a nurse’s child in a pram, when the dog lead had been cut. This was not the first case, either.

Of course, Poirot has ideas: who the perpetrator might be, where to find them, how the crimes against little dogs are being committed, and why. It is this ‘why’ which brings us to a Poirot who shows himself to have extreme empathy with the plight of ordinary people. If you have read many Poirot books, you may have noticed that, despite being a strongly verbal proponent of justice, he is sometimes seen to bend the rules of justice for certain individuals. This is one of those cases.

This is a tale with many twists and turns, all seemingly disparate but all fitting together in actuality to make Poirot’s plan and pathway of detection perfect. And so, who is the Nemean Lion in this story? Sir Joseph Hoggin? Not at all. But I’ll leave you to discover this beautiful nugget in the story.

The Lernean Hydra

This story deals with a premise which features heavily in Golden Age mysteries, and historical cosies in general: did the living, breathing husband/wife poison their spouse because they wanted to marry someone else? Rumours about in a village that a doctor has killed his wife in order to marry his young dispenser. The doctor himself is devastated by these rumours and feels they are slowly destroying his life entirely.

In a microcosmic world of ‘guilty regardless’, how is Poirot supposed to do battle against all the rumour and deliberate false trails placed before him? As he always does: with order, method, and an acute sense of those things that ‘feel’ right, psychologically. Poirot sees the mythical Hydra as his problem to overcome in his labour here. For, every time he goes to chop off one of its nine heads (or reduce the possibilities, or crack the clue), another two grow up in its place. This story is littered with a myriad of tittle-tattle and bit-parts of eyewitness accounts, surmises and suspicious actions, both useful and red herrings.

I really did feel that I was in the thick of it with Poirot here, and that there were so many rumours and falsities (if only I could figure out which they were), that I felt that I had become ravelled in those tangled balls of wool which Miss Marple so often mentions in the TV adaptations (incidentally, if you want to watch a Marple adaptation which references tangled wool as her allusive process for solving a crime, look no further that The Blue Geranium). Yet, as things seemed to get more and more complicated, they actually began to lead to one place – the true murderer. I found this a very adeptly handled story, with some strong characterisation.

The Arcadian Deer

If you have seen the TV adaptation of The Labours of Hercules, starring David Suchet as Poirot, you will immediately recognise this story as the subplot storyline which enables Poirot to visit the Swiss Alps for the purposes of finding a missing maid, and thus attempting to rectify a love story gone wrong. In the adaptation, this also places Poirot in the right place to be able to solve the main plot: to catch the killer, Marrascaud. It is, perhaps, my favourite Poirot TV film due to the ‘love interest’ reasons I mentioned at the beginning of this piece. If you have not seen it, I – and my soft heart – very much recommend it.

‘The Arcadian deer’ sees Poirot stranded in a hotel in the middle of nowhere, with the onset of snow and a broken down car. A mechanic comes to him to give him an update but there is more to this man’s twisting of his cap in his hands. He is anxious, heart-broken. The maid of a famous Russian dancer has vanished, not replied to his letter, and he is concerned for her safety. Indeed, he admits he wants to marry the maid, no matter what Poirot discovers about her circumstances. And so begins Poirot’s third labour.

This is such a simple yet intriguing case, made so by so many open threads that become dead ends. To my mind, it seems that, the more dead ends close up, the more Poirot’s intuition leads him to the only conclusion that there could be regarding this missing maid, and her whereabouts. (of course, I am not going to spoil that here). And only Poirot, with his immense capacity for seeing the possibilities in every forlorn love affair, could find a way out of the dark for the poor unfortunates here. I very much like this story, and am delighted that the TV adaptation gave it life on the screen.

The Erymanthian Boar

It is to my eternal delight that I have had the opportunity to re-read ‘The Erymanthian Boar’. There is much in this particular tale which has been utilised in the filming of the David Suchet adaptation, although not all plot points are the same, or carry equal weight, but it is enough to make me extremely excited about this one.

This story takes Poirot to an isolated Alpine setting, where he is contacted by his old friend, Lementeuil, Commissaire of Police, who tells him that the killer, Marrascaud, is believed to be planning a meeting with his gang in this strange choice of location, presumably to split their ill-gotten gains. It is in this story that Poirot is able to finally come face-to-face with Marrascaud. But it certainly takes plenty of ingenuity on Poirot’s part.

Not everyone is who they seem. And not everyone is on the side of right or wrong that we believe they are. Everyone becomes a suspect as the guests at the hotel remain cut off by a landslide in the funicular, and danger mounts as the hours tick by. Poirot is able to use all his former professional knowledge as a policeman in this case of constant misdirection, which I find really interesting, and it is, of course, set up wonderfully by Christie. If you are at all a fan of the TV adaptation, then this is a must-read.

The Augean Stables

This is very much a political tale on the surface, layered with a private one once Poirot is involved. Poirot is approached by the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary to salvage the reputation of the ‘People’s Party’ from the underhanded tactics of a scurrilous newspaper. To save the Party, prevent disruption to the country (and it falling into a possible Dictatorship), Poirot can either try to discredit the stories the newspaper is spreading – or he can opt for something wider-reaching and much more permanent: the discrediting of the newspaper itself. And what he does is, to my mind, brilliant.

The story focuses very heavily on the reference to the particular Herculean task Christie has allotted Poirot here, namely the cleaning of the Augean Stables, bringing in a force large enough to wash away the dirt completely. Christie explains the task as the story progresses, for those unfamiliar with it, or maybe to focus the reader on the way everyone, from politicians to Poirot, believe that this kind of washing away the filth is imperative to preventing political catastrophe.

Poirot is particularly inventive here, modernising the ancient task and swapping the water of a huge river for the tidal wave of people and their penchant for gossiping about the sex scandal that seems to have invaded the private life of the new Prime Minister. Although I don’t want to spoil the story for you, I will say that Poirot’s manipulation of this ‘tidal wave’ is superbly effective, and also places him firmly in the grey areas of morality. He is certainly not against employing intrigue and bending the moral rules in order to achieve success in this case. It is a very well-plotted and impressive story.

The Stymphalean Birds

We return to a story which makes up yet another element of the TV adaptation starring David Suchet. If you have seen it (and once again, I do wholeheartedly recommend it if you haven’t), parts of this form the sub-plot in which Harold Waring, politician and man who has kept a very clean political and private sheet, becomes embroiled with two ladies who cause him a great deal of problems.

The women, mother and daughter, are on holiday in the same isolated location as Waring. He has become friendly with them, while simultaneously taking a strong dislike to two other women of bird-like appearance and wearing black cloaks, whom he believes would gleefully do evil if given the opportunity. Waring develops the beginning of an emotional attachment to the daughter, Elsie Clayton, whose husband is a jealous man – and who arrives, threatens her, and who finds himself dead at hands of his wife in self-defence. The women beg Waring for financial help in covering up the death, and again when the mother tells Waring she is now being blackmailed by the two bird-like women.

This is a story of not judging a book by its cover. I shall say no more. You have probably already figured out how it progresses, and how it ends.

The Cretan Bull

As you are, no doubt, very aware by now, I have a particular fondness in this collection for the stories which make up the TV adaptation of the same name. ‘The Cretan Bull’ is not one of those, yet is is one of the stories I particularly like and found thoroughly interesting to read. The entire plot centres around hereditary madness in the family of Admiral Chandler. Diana Maberley, engaged to Admiral Chandler’s son, Hugh, pleads for help from Poirot. It appears that madness has begun to define itself in Hugh, which would explain the strange way he left the Navy without full explanation, and recent other dreadful occurrences which have caused death to animals and which are being attributed to Hugh, also. Yet Diana does not believe for one moment that Hugh is mad, but that something else is going on.

Is Hugh mad? Or is someone deliberately trying to get him out of the way by any means necessary so they can inherit his money – maybe Diana, who is named in his will? Or is there something – or someone – much more malign at work? Poirot goes to stay at the home of the Chandlers so that he can discover the truth. And that truth is bitter, twisted, and cruel.

This is one of the stories in this collection that threw me both onto the scent and off it simultaneously. I was so right about what I thought – and so wrong about how it all comes together as a tragically macabre tale of what happens when visceral hatred binds itself to intelligent planning. For me, this story is absolutely worth the read.

The Horses of Diomedes

Poirot acts for love in this ‘labour’. Not his own, but on behalf of a friend, Doctor Michael Stoddart, who has formed an attachment to a woman whom he fears has become unwittingly embroiled in parties at which drugs are not only being taken but are being dealt. Poirot, of course, investigates.

For me, this is one of the more disappointing stories in this collection. I didn’t quite connect with it in the way I have done with many of the others. I am struggling to pinpoint exactly why, and it could be that, for me, it falls a bit flat in the characterisation. There are many levels of superficiality in this story, and it seems to rub off on me, leaving me with an overall feeling that I would have liked very much to have been able to delve further into the murky depths of the villain and their manipulation of people in their power, and that I should, in its absence, move onto the next story. Please understand that this is my subjective view of this particular narrative, and the way it affects me as a reader. You may love it.

The Girdle of Hyppolita

Aha, a story full of intrigue, a stolen painting, and a schoolgirl missing from a train! There is a pace to this story that sweeps you through it as you read. A Reubens (in which a semi-clad Hyppolita gives her girdle to Hercules) has been stolen and is likely being fenced somewhere in Europe. The link to Poirot’s ‘labours’ is, then, obvious. At the same time, a very respectable girls’ school has a new student go missing on a train where she is travelling with other students and a member of staff who has never met her before, on their way to the school. This is a fabulous romp through the clever and simultaneously devious handling of a stolen painting, which relies upon the complete an unwitting participation of the innocent.

It is extremely difficult to discuss this story without giving away the development of the two plot lines, which become wonderfully interlinked, so I am not going to try. If you have read Christie’s Cat Among the Pigeons, set in a girls’ school, you will notice at least some resemblance in the way certain parts of the deception here is pulled off. If not, then I offer you another recommendation for a Poirot novel! It may be that Christie was, indeed, experimenting with an idea which she later used in a full-length work, just as she did when she expanded the essence of the short story, ‘Yellow iris’ into the intricate workings of the novel, Sparkling Cyanide.

The Flock of Geryon

We see the return of a previous character in the collection here: the companion to Lady Hoggin in ‘The Nemean Lion’. Instead of being embroiled as a suspect, this time Miss Carnaby comes to Poirot for help, and becomes his assistant. Her friend has become entranced by a religious sect, one seemingly all about sheep and pastures – all very peaceful and idyllic – and one which captures the interest of lonely, wealthy women. And, as it turns out, some of these woman have died of various causes, all leaving their legacies to the Flock of Geryon.

I have to say that I particularly enjoyed the narrative insight into the thoughts of Miss Carnaby as she goes about her undercover work. There are times when she is vulnerable, or in danger, or has to completely use her ingenuity and quick-wittedness. And all the time, we experience her thinking these through, counter-balancing emotional susceptibility with detached intelligence. This story is very much as testament to the strength of character of the female. Miss Carnaby puts her life at risk to assist Poirot by going undercover and to ensure her friend escapes the clutches of the leader of the sect where she could quite easily have been murdered for her money.

It also throws light on the position of womanhood in domesticity at the time. The collection was written in 1947, two years after World War II. Despite the true and undeniable horrors of war, the capability of women in action had been proven, just as it had in World War I, yet women were expected to return to domesticity. Miss Carnaby, for me, represents the woman who has within her the capacity for action and is desperate to be able to put it to good use. Her elongated time undercover on this assignment, the danger she risks, and the level of intuition and intelligence combined that she uses throughout gives her this opportunity. She does a great job. And yet, I find the situation unsatisfying. What does she have beyond the story? She has had her moment of adventure, and now she returns to her domestic life. Will that be enough for her?

The Apples of the Hesperides

Poirot is approached by an exceedingly wealthy art collector, Emery Power, to recapture the lethal drinking cup of the Borgias, which he bought at auction, and which disappeared and has never reappeared in the last ten years. This golden cup, favourite drinking vessel used by Pope Alexander VI – Roderigo Borgia – and given to visitors who invariably died, depicts a tree, a serpent, and emeralds which represent apples. The object brings together Poirot’s Catholicism (which, in this collection, is mentioned as being his birth religion) and the Ancient ‘labour’, and they remain intertwined throughout the story as Poirot searches for the cup in various places, including those which have religious significance.

While I do not want to spoil the story for you, I will say that it is the notion of ‘good’, of sacrifice, that plays out against the backdrop of the Ancient Herculean ‘labour’ as Poirot draws this case to its conclusion. It very much portrays a Poirot who, while the ever-proud and determined detective who refuses to be beaten, is also the benevolent Christian man who is on the side of the angels in trying to help a rich man gain the Kingdom of Heaven. This is a story full to the brim with religious symbolism and narrative, and there is much to be absorbed here. Just do not drink from the cup!

The Capture of Cerberus

And so, to the final story in the collection, and the last of Poirot’s ‘labours’. It was the story I was waiting for throughout the entire collection, soft-hearted creature that I am, as this story sees the return to Poirot’s life of the Russian ‘sometimes’ jewel thief, Countess Vera Rosakoff. Poirot’s admiration for her is long-standing, and the moment he recognises her as she is going down the escalator in the London Underground and he is going the opposite way, he turns tail and tries to find her. She calls to him that he can find her ‘in Hell’.

Hell, as it transpires, is a nightclub, replete with a giant black hound (if ever Poirot needed a nudge towards this being an excuse for Cerberus, this is it!). The Countess owns the place, and is accompanied by a young, bespectacled psychiatrist, Alice Cunningham, the partner of her son who is working in America. All is not as it seems at the nightclub, as the police are convinced that it is the headquarters of a drugs ring. There is even a detective planted among the customers, gathering intelligence.

Poirot neither wants the Countess to be mixed up in this, nor does he want her being framed for the drugs racket. In typically brilliant Poirot style, and employing the assistance of various slightly unscrupulous helpers reminiscent of the tactics of Sherlock Holmes, he brings this case to a conclusion most satisfying to him. There are elements of this story which make up the main love interest and villain threads of the TV adaptation of The Labours of Hercules, yet the treatments of both are vastly different. If you have watched the adaptation and not read the story yet, then I would urge you to read this for a completely different story and thematic experience. I adore this story.

There you have it: all the ‘labours’ of Hercule Poirot. As with any short story collection, I have my favourite tales (as I think you may well have gathered!). The Ancient and the Modern combine continuously throughout, giving Poirot a mythological tale on which to base his final group of cases before retirement – and if you believe he is going to retire, then definitely think again. It is absolutely not at all necessary to wait until Short Story Month to read this collection, as I have done, but it has been a fabulous excuse for me to re-read it. If you have not yet experienced these stories, or the TV adaptation, which I have referenced incessantly and unapologetically, then I recommend both. If you can read ‘The Arcadian Deer’, ‘The Erymanthian Boar’, ‘The Stymphalean Birds’ and ‘The Capture of Cerberus’ in close succession to each other and to watching the film, so much the better. I hope you enjoy The Labours of Hercules.

You might also like:

‘Joy is a bubble’ (complete short story) written by me and included in my collection, The Reason for Everything

‘Instinct’ (complete short story) written by me and included in my collection, The Reason for Everything

Short story month: I’m addicted to short stories (as relevant now as it was when I wrote this post in 2021)

Sad Cypress (Read Christie Challenge, April 2026): Beloved Book in my Collection

30th April 2026 by claireladds 1 Comment

Image shows Sad Cypress book cover facing outwards on a bookcase filled with Agatha Christie books. Text on the image reads: Agatha Christie Challenge 2026, April. My choice for beloved in my collection, Sad Cypress.

I am still reading my way joyously through the list of books I have chosen for the Read Christie challenge this year. During April, participants were tasked with choosing a book which is beloved in their Agatha Christie collection. Now, there are many that I really like, and some that I absolutely adore. There are also one or two of Christie’s novels which have captivated a part of me and won’t let me go. So, actually, this became a really tricky choice, as I had to decide where to place other books, and in which months, for the challenge. Ultimately, my choice came down to the two novels which captured my heart from the moment I first read them: Sad Cypress or Endless Night. I will certainly be discussing Endless Night later in the year for a different month’s premise. Today, it is Sad Cypress that I have chosen as ‘beloved in my collection’.

I remember more vividly than most of my reading exploits the day that I began reading this novel for the first time. I was a teenager of about fourteen, and one with a huge capacity for imagination. I read this book in our back garden but before long, if you had asked me where I was, I would have described a very different place. So absorbed was I in the world of Sad Cypress that I was reading in the gardens of the ancestral home inside its pages, a rose trellis close to me with the breeze cascading the aroma of red roses all around my head, as I sat at a little table which held a plate of fish paste sandwiches, and indoors, when I went to continue reading out of the sun and sat on the imaginary giant wooden spiral staircase, a black medical bag magically opened, revealing a tube of Morphia. Only something about it did not seem quite right…

Now, I feel, this bizarre description might need putting into some sort of sensible context. Here is a brief summary of the book, in case you have never come across it before (there are no spoilers regarding ‘who did it’, but there are details which appear further into the book, so please skip this part if you want to read it with no preconceptions of the plot):

Elinor Carlisle, heir to to her aunt’s fortune, stands in the dock, accused of murdering Mary Gerrard. An anonymous letter suggests that Elinor and her fiancé, Roddy, (also a relation to old Mrs Welman by marriage) need to watch out for Mary, who is becoming all together too close to Mrs Welman and may make trouble where inheritance is concerned. But, once Elinor and Roddy head to their aunt to see what all the fuss is about, things get much worse. Roddy’s visceral and sudden love for Mary Gerrard causes the engagement to be broken off. Worse still, their aunt dies. Meanwhile, Mary, now with a small provision made to her by the very honourable Elinor, has made a will – so now it seems she has something to leave to its recipient. Elinor, too, has made a will, leaving everything she inherits to Roddy.

While clearing out the house before its sale and also that of the associated lodge where Mary’s father lived, Elinor makes fish paste sandwiches, and invites Mary and nurse Hopkins who has taken a shine to Mary and is helping out, to have lunch with her. An hour later, Elinor and nurse Hopkins find Mary dead.

Did Elinor poison Mary Gerrard by adding Morphine to the sandwiches? The police are so convinced by this theory, and the evidence which backs it up, that she is in the dock for murder. Or could someone malign be framing Elinor to suit their own ends? Doctor Lorde, who attended to old Mrs Welman, is determined to get Elinor off at all costs, and enlists the help of his friend, Hercule Poirot to do so. Poirot, being Poirot, intends to seek out the truth, even if that might mean he discovers that Elinor is actually guilty of murdering Mary Gerrard – and of other atrocities along the way. But sometimes there are things even Poirot does not want to know…

So, why exactly is it so beloved in my collection? The answer is threefold: Christie’s use of structure, her treatment of character, and the thematic undercurrent that pervades every aspect of this book.

Firstly, structure. The story itself is cyclical and I truly love a cyclical story. We begin in the courtroom, where Elinor Carlisle is being accused of the murder of Mary Gerrard. And, to be honest, as readers, we do not know if she did or not. So Christie takes us back to the beginning of the whole event: to the point when Elinor and her fiancé, Roddy, receive an anonymous letter warning them that someone may be trying to get their hands on the inheritance. We follow the whole process to the murder, and then to Elinor’s arrest. And so begins a separate section – the investigation by Poirot, with everything a reader can expect, from the questioning of suspects through to Poirot’s own quirky ways of finally bringing his findings to a conclusion, which he always states will be the truth, regardless of what that is. We are pulled this way and that over who might be guilty throughout the entire middle section of the novel. Finally, we return to the courtroom, where the excitement mounts and justice is delivered – and we, the readers, finally discover whether Elinor is guilty or innocent.

I will look at character and the thematic undercurrent together, as they are intricately linked. The people in this book have a great deal of hidden depth, which I absolutely love. Christie is excellent at hinting at what is below the surface through events that happen or have happened in the past, or through partially thought-out ideas of her protagonists. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the character of Elinor Carlisle. She can appear as someone rather lacking in passion on the surface, but when we spend time reading between the lines of everything Elinor does, says and in particular thinks, we find a woman who is extremely emotionally aware of herself and of the devastation that love, and betrayal, can cause a person. Her thoughts are powerful, passionate, sometimes dangerous and take her to the brink of murder (whether she goes through with it I will leave you to discover for yourself).

The hidden emotional depth appears to run in the family. One of the most powerful features of this novel, for me, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the murder mystery. I have always been fascinated by the painful undercurrent of the tragedy of love and, indeed, I think this has always appealed to me the most about this book. The emotions, particularly those which are buried from everyone but the reader, and those which have been hidden due to years of societal expectation, are strong and carry the motivations of certain characters throughout (I am being careful to avoid spoilers here). Mrs Welman has a past which she has been holding close to her heart for decades. When we discover what this is, I think it is impossible not to feel anguish for the old lady’s plight, and a distaste for the social, political and legal situations which prevent a deep and enduring love from being fulfilled. Poirot, however, with his astute and sympathetic understanding of the intricacies of the human heart at its most passionate, loving, vulnerable and, indeed, dangerous, shows himself to be so much more than the quirky little Belgian detective who uses order and method and collects facts alone. He shows himself to be human. For me, the ones in which Poirot is sunk into the grey areas of the guilty and the innocent are always the best Poirot stories because it adds a level of complexity to the vehicle for crime-solving. Poirot’s detection is impeccable here. While reading I am both rooting for him all the way, and also hoping against hope that he finds something which will acquit Elinor, as the evidence is stacked ridiculously high against her.

If you have never read Sad Cypress, if you love Agatha Christie books, or if you are trying them out for the first time, if you are a Hercule Poirot fan (as I am, as you will most certainly know if you have read other posts of mine or are in my Readers’ Club), or if you find intrigue in the complexities of love, passion and secrets which society prevents women from revealing while also being embroiled in solving a mystery and all of it flanked by the courtroom drama which plays out over the Accused (and yes, I am aware there was a lot there), then I heartily recommend this novel. You can then read it for yourself and see why it is my Read Christie choice for April.

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The ABC Murders (Read Christie Challenge, March 2026): Book that made the biggest impact on me as a young reader

Death on the Nile (Read Christie Challenge, February 2026): My choice for ‘beloved characters’

The ABC Murders (Read Christie Challenge, March 2026): Book Which Made the Biggest Impact on Me as a Young Reader

28th March 2026 by claireladds 1 Comment

March’s Read Christie 2026 theme has been to choose and read one of Agatha Christie’s books which made the biggest impact on me as a young reader. With a prompt such as this, choices for every single reader are going to be intensely personal and individualised ones. I smiled when I saw the remit for this month because I was able to go straight to my bookcase and pick up a novel without hesitation. My choice for March is The ABC Murders. Let me explain why this has been, and will no doubt be, the easiest reading decision I make for this challenge and probably for the entire year.

So, what is The ABC Murders about? Before I go any further, I’ll give a brief explanation. Hercule Poirot receives a letter, telling him a murder has been committed in Andover – but this is a strange missive, as it comes directly from the murderer, typed, mocking Poirot and daring him to do something about it, and about the murders which threaten to follow. Indeed, the next one will be in Bexhill. The letter is signed ‘A.B.C.’. Poor Mrs Asher who runs a sweet shop in Andover is the first unfortunate corpse. So begins a series of deaths, always with a copy of the ABC railway guide left behind. Poirot, assisted by Hastings, and with Inspector Japp also joining them on the trail, need to capture this murderer as every part of the country begins to wait for it to be its turn and the victims use up all the letters of the alphabet. Meanwhile, the mentally fragile Alexander Bonaparte Cust has just been given a job selling stockings. He has all his equipment for finding his customers all across England: the stockings in a case, a typewriter, and copies of the ABC railway guide…

I was fascinated by this story, the way it built upon itself piece by piece, by the investigation and the clues until they converged in an ingenious solution right at the end, and, of course, by the distinctive characters on both sides of the moral and legal fence. If you’ve read any number of my blog posts and articles, or you follow me on social media (@claireladdsauthor, if you’d like to), you might know that I have an enduring love affair with all things Agatha Christie. This certainly isn’t because I write mysteries myself, or not in the way readers interpret conventional ‘mystery fiction’, certainly. Writers don’t write in every genre that they read. I have an immense respect for mystery fiction authors; the plotting of the crime or mystery has to be intricate and finely woven with breadcrumbs of detection and clues interspersed with red herrings, all while ensuring the characters are wonderfully developed and function as they need to. This respect I have was planted the day my dad came home from town with a copy of The ABC Murders.

I remember vividly Dad presenting it to me, as a ten-year-old. He already knew I was the kind of reader who devoured The Secret Seven (I wanted to be one of them. I’d have volunteered to be Scamper the dog’s next biscuit if it meant I could get in that shed and listen in on the secret conversations). Dad had also bought me some of the Famous Five and Nancy Drew books and had watched me devour them. But this present, on this evening, felt like something else, something special. He told me he had seen it and thought I would like reading it. Why this particular Christie book, I have no idea, but I did know that he’d bought it from our local bookshop, and I also knew that the entire middle section of the shop had multiple bookcases which only housed Agatha Christie books, with roughly ten copies of each one on the shelves. It was a sight to behold, and I used to spend ages staring at it when I went into the shop, no doubt much to the secret irritation of the man who ran the fountain pen section directly opposite. Having me propped incessantly against his glass counter I imagine did his pen sales no good at all. To his absolute credit, he was a very lovely elderly gentleman who never once asked me to move, even a little bit.

As a young reader, this was a pivotal moment in my reading. It was an indelible mark in my mind that I’d gone ‘up in the world’, had become an adult reader. This change in mindset paved the way for, not only my devoted and voracious devouring of Christie books, but also many others. My bookshelves have filled non-stop ever since, not only with Agatha Christie, but with so many kinds of books which have interested me over the years. I did move to either side of the Christie shelves in the shop (eventually, and every so often as curiosity and the need to regain bloodflow in my bookcase-rooted body drove me), to the works of the Bronte sisters, and of Thomas Hardy, and Keats and Daphne du Maurier, and Jean Rhys and Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Aeschylus and so many Ancient Greek and Roman writers, and … the list was endless, because I felt I was allowed to read beyond children’s books. That one igniting incident of being given The ABC Murders had fuelled my fire as a lifelong reader and had given me permission to explore the worlds between the pages, and to expand. It was as if my imagination had been given wings and it flew and flew, never running out of energy because it was constantly being fed.

My imagination had, of course, also been given Hercule Poirot. Dad could not have picked a protagonist more perfect for me. From the moment I began reading about him, I adored him. It led me to spend an inordinate amount of time preventing customers from seeing the full range of fountain pens available in my local bookshop’s beautiful pen section because I spent every spare minute gazing upon the Christie bookshelves, with a voracious need to hunt down every Poirot story I could lay my hands on. To aid me in my Poirot hunt and beyond, I typed up an alphabetical list on my clunky, manual typewriter, so I could tick off every Christie book I bought and read. I still have that original list somewhere. My utter adoration of Poirot from the outset has also led to many hundreds (or likely thousands) of hours watching film and TV adaptations of the Poirot books, too. This has been my solace and comfort blanket on many, many occasions, and my obsession. Even my Masters dissertation was written on Agatha Christie’s books and adaptation! This is the wonderful thing about reading. It can lead you down so many rabbit holes of complete joy and fulfilment, specific to you.

Ultimately, what I can wholeheartedly say is that, while I love the book itself, it has always been much less about the story within The ABC Murders than receiving the novel as a representation of adult fiction which has caused it to be the Agatha Christie book which has made the biggest impact on me as a young reader. I doubt my dad could have guessed at the impact giving me that one Agatha Christie book would have on the rest of my life. But I’m unendingly grateful for it. I often hear people telling me that it was ‘X’ book which hooked them on reading. I’ve been hooked all my life. It’s why, as a young reader, I always hoped for a book as a present, and as an adult I have no hesitation in giving them as gifts. I would urge anyone to give a book to someone; you never know – it could be you who begins their love for literature, and a gift that will last a lifetime.

Death on the Nile (Read Christie Challenge, February 2026): Book Containing Beloved Characters

27th February 2026 by claireladds 3 Comments

February’s task for the Read Christie 2026 challenge, as set by the Agatha Christie team, has been to read a book containing ‘beloved characters’. The team chose Mrs McGinty’s Dead, and it’s a great choice, featuring as it does both Hercule Poirot and Ariadne Oliver. As with January’s read, I have chosen to deviate from the suggested novel to reflect on my own choice for a book with characters beloved to me: Death on the Nile.

As with the Christie team’s choice, mine also contains Hercule Poirot, who happens to be my absolute favourite Christie detective, and possibly my favourite detective of all time. He was the first detective I encountered in adult crime novels, when my dad bought me a copy of The ABC Murders. I devoured it at the age of ten and became completely devoted to all of the Poirot stories. Without really realising it, I had also encountered Poirot much earlier, growing up as I did on Sunday afternoon cinematic films on the TV, several of which were the Peter Ustinov versions of Poirot, glamorous films, with Death on the Nile being one I saw multiple times, and also featuring the wonderful David Niven as Colonel Race. Moving on several decades, the David Suchet version of Death on the Nile is one of my favourite films in which he played Poirot. With all that in mind, I was always likely to be drawn to this novel like a moth to a flame. And it is the characters in the novel that I will discuss here.

Hercule Poirot

Out of all of Christie’s novels which involve recurring characters, it is Poirot who is my enduring love. I’m not even sure I can fully explain, even to myself, why he intrinsically appeals to me. What I do know is that I love his quirky dress and mannerisms, and the way he goes about picking at the carcass of a crime, piece by piece, until all the scraps of clues have been used up and explained. I also find it very endearing that he has such a humble backstory, one of being a child of a large family who had to make a success of himself to support them. A man who was injured during the First World War and was taken care of by a woman in England (and if you read The Mysterious Affair at Styles you will get a fuller flavour of this), and has a strong appreciation of poverty and desperation, and of skills of workers, which makes him an empathetic detective who treats a Duchess in the same way as he treats her maid (or, indeed, in Death on the Nile, the downtrodden, poor relation in the same way as the high-born, wealthy one).

Most of all, I love his approach to the human side of crime. He knows that, somewhere at the heart of the motive, is something intensely personal which reflects the way the victim lived their life and how it impacted the people around them. And he also shows himself to be, not just a problem-solving machine, but a human, too, considering the feelings of other people in the case, showing empathy, sympathy and, indeed, humanity. There are several cases he solves whereby he allows justice to take its course in an unconventional way. This is one of those cases, and highlights Poirot’s knowledge and acceptance that, sometimes, there are morally grey areas to consider, along with intertwined compassion for the perpetrator as well as the victim. This is, of course, Poirot’s subjective view, but it leaves the reader with plenty to consider: how would we have handled the final dishing out of justice?

The underrated sidekick

Now we turn to the sidekick. Ex-MI5 agent, Colonel Race is deployed by Christie in this role here. He appears part-way through, and is there to do some investigating of his own (the sub-plot of which I won’t spoil here). I always enjoy an appearance by Colonel Race; I find him a truly likeable man and a consummate professional, therefore a great extension of Poirot’s own impeccably performed investigations. It is interesting to watch these two professionals work through their findings. An appearance by Colonel Race always means that something much wider-reaching than a crime motivated by the private and personal is lurking in the background, which gives an extra edge of danger to the atmosphere, and therefore joining his investigations with Poirot’s reminds us that the world can be a dangerous place, both without and within our own lives. For me, Colonel Race is one of Christie’s underrated characters.

Impassioned suspect

I’ve alluded to the crimes I feel Christie is particularly expert at creating: those seeded in the intensely personal. These frequently interweave with the emotional, and are character-driven. And, as we know, getting inside the head of the people close to a crime is Poirot’s forte! There are few characters in any of Christie’s novels in which the emotional comes into play as much as in the initial prime suspect here, the impassioned Jacqueline de Bellefort. She is immediately suspected of the killing of Linnet Doyle, her former best friend who stole her ex-fiancée, Simon Doyle, and married him within weeks. After this devastation to her life, we next meet her as she follows the newly-weds to all the locations of their exotic honeymoon and confesses to Poirot that she has strong desire to shoot Linnet. Poirot both sympathises with her desperate emotions and is extremely fearful that such strength of feeling leaves Jacqueline herself in danger from her own passions.

Jacqueline frequently lingers in my mind when I think of Christie novels. Her emotional intensity has stayed with me from the very first time I read about her, decades ago. She is one of those stand-out characters who make me consider whether my actions would have matched hers, should I have been placed in her situation (which contains such huge spoilers that I cannot detail them here), and has gone a long way to inform me, as a writer, how someone could be driven almost entirely by the emotions burning within them. I believe that Death on the Nile is worth reading to follow Jacqueline’s story alone.

Other enduring characters to give us pause for thought

There are other truly enduring characters for me in this book. Once again, my choices revolve around the human qualities with which Christie has endowed them. I want to focus, in this section, then, on the mothers, and their younger female counterparts. Two mother stand out: the tormented Mrs Otterbourne, writer of romance which has been shunned by the libraries and increasingly her readership, and has turned to drink, and Mrs Allerton, possibly the most kind and caring mother that Christie ever wrote about in her fiction. The absolute pain of Mrs Otterbourne, which plays out in the tempestuous relationship she has with her long-suffering daughter, Rosalie, is placed into opposition with the almost idealised mothering of Mrs Allerton. She is an extremely endearing person, whom Poirot likes immensely, and who is ultimately able to provide comfort and love to Rosalie in a very humble, selfless manner. As a reader, I can’t help but feel desperately sorry for one, and admire the way the other is prepared to take on a ‘found family’ mother-daughter dynamic, based purely on her innate kindness of soul. Combined, they leave us with a lingering unease around the concept of motherhood, and the complexities of the mother-daughter relationship.

There are two other characters I would like to make mention of here, too: Rosalie Otterbourne, long-suffering daughter of the aforementioned Mrs Otterbourne, and Cornelia, poor and downtrodden relation of the high-born Mrs Van Schyler who has a secret. I have immense sympathy for Rosalie, dealing as she does with the difficulties of her mother’s professional and personal downfall, and struggling with her own entanglements of resentment of her mother and her undeniable love for her. Cornelia, by contrast, is blissfully unaware that she is being treated abominably by her rich relation and is grateful for the opportunities afforded her in being allowed to come on the excursion down the Nile. This unawareness and her accompanying obliging behaviour, led by the controlling Mrs Van Schyler, is what makes me have huge sympathy for Cornelia. However, what I love about both Rosalie and Cornelia is their strength of character, Rosalie’s which has had to be of a sustained nature to protect her mother, and Cornelia’s, ultimately, in choosing to follow her own path of love, unrelated to social position or money, both of which she could have and which would give her a ‘better’ life.

So then, for me, Death on the Nile contains very particular kinds of ‘beloved characters’: the repeat characters who are respectful and consummate professionals, and the women who fill this entire novel with everything it is to be human: the passion, suffering, resilience and, yes, love. In saying this, I am, of course, very aware of the discrepancy between gender roles and that males are given that of logical fact-finder and puzzle-solver whereas women are given the roles of the impassioned, the reactive, driven by a need of some kind. Yet, heading towards a hundred years after the book was written, this is what makes the women in particular stand out as sympathetic, real people, of their era and beyond, and I love that. There are other men in this novel whose actions provide the plot points for the story, such as the thief, or the fraudulent professional, yet continually it is the women who provide the heart of the story so that it is not merely a two-dimensional puzzle (and Christie’s books never are! If you don’t believe me, then I urge you to read Endless Night or And Then There Were None). This gender separation throughout may even be why the book ends with the promise of marriage between a man and woman who find a tempered middle ground between hard, factual logic and passionate interiority, thus drawing together facets of both. Could it even be Christie suggesting that extremes of either are unhelpful to us if we want to live a happy life? I’ll let you decide.

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