The Short Stories of Hercule Poirot: Series 1-3

About The Short Stories of Hercule Poirot: Series 1-3

The popularity of Agatha Christie’s debut novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and the public enthusiasm for its hero, dapper Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, prompted Bruce Ingram, editor of London-based society magazine The Sketch: A Journal of Art and Actuality, to offer the author a contract for a series of twelve short stories. When they finished, they had proved so popular that Ingram asked for a second round — another twelve. Then, the following year, Christie wrote a third set of twelve Hercule Poirot stories for The Sketch — this time arranged as a serial novel, The Man Who Was Number Four, which she later rewrote into her seventh novel, The Big Four.

— It is these early Poirot short stories, written and published in 1923 and 1924, that are collected in this book. — By the end of this third series, Christie had Poirot retired and Hastings married off, and clearly intended for that to be the end of it; but, fortunately for us, she brought him out of retirement in 1926 with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and he went on to become one of fiction’s most beloved characters ... In this collection you will find: — First series of 12 short stories, “Tales with a Sting”: The Affair at the Victory Ball; The Curious Disappearance of the Opalsen Pearls; The Adventure of the King of Clubs; The Disappearance of Mr.

Davenheim; The Mystery of the Plymouth Express; The Adventure of “The Western Star"; The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor; The Kidnapped Prime Minister; The Million-Dollar Bond Robbery; The Adventure of the Cheap Flat; The Mystery of Hunter’s Lodge; The Clue of the Chocolate Box. —Second series of short stories, “The Grey Cells of Monsieur Poirot”: The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb; The Case of the Veiled Lady; The Kidnapping of Johnnie Waverly; The Market Basing Mystery; The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman; The Case of the Missing Will; The Submarine Plans; The Adventure of the Clapham Cook; The Lost Mine; The Cornish Mystery; The Double Clue; The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding. — Third series of short stories (a serial novel: “The Man Who Was Number Four”): 1.

The Unexpected Guest; 2. The Adventure of the Dartmoor Bungalow; 3. The Lady on the Stairs; 4.

The Radium Thieves; 5. In the House of the Enemy; 6. The Yellow Jasmine Mystery; 7.

The Chess Problem; 8. The Baited Trap; 9. The Peroxide Blonde; 10.

The Terrible Catastrophe; 11. The Dying Chinaman; 12.