Simeon Lee summons his four sons and their wives home for Christmas, then proceeds to deliberately provoke each member of the family before announcing that he has changed his will…

The downside of reading Christie’s entire catalogue in publication order is that the seasonal books don’t necessarily come up at the appropriate time of year. Luckily, beyond being set over Christmas, this one isn’t actually particularly Christmassy - nobody is choking on their poisoned Figgy Pudding or what have you.

Anyway, I did figure out a few details and clues, but absolutely did not manage to put them together to figure out whodunnit. It was cleverly done, in a way that I associate with the Poirot mysteries - the clues are all there of course, but there is a subtleness to them and the dynamics between characters are almost always a critical aspect of the denouement.

A cleverly-written murder mystery featuring tense family dynamics and Poirot’s indefatigable little grey cells.