Poirot Investigates

About the book

Hastings records a series of compact investigations in which Hercule Poirot applies his confidence in order and psychology to baffling events. Stolen valuables, unexpected deaths, a disappearance, and apparently supernatural danger provide different tests of his method. Christie uses the shorter form to make a small detail carry unusual weight, often allowing an attractive explanation to settle briefly before its weakness appears. Hastings's reactions preserve the difference between witnessing an event and understanding it. The collection is especially suited to readers who enjoy the concentrated movement from puzzling premise to reconsidered evidence. Its cases ask how an arrangement benefits the person who created it, and how readily observers accept a story when its visible pieces have been placed to encourage the wrong conclusion.

• Order and inference
• Deception
• Human motives

Why read it

For concise puzzles that give Poirot's attention to arrangement and motive room to shine.

Short-story collection · English text