Poirot: v.2: The Complete Battles of Hastings

Publisher and industry reviews

Jacket review

'A triumph of Poirot's special qualities.' Times Literary Supplement 'Most ingenious.' New York Times

UK Kirkus review

Following hot on the heels of Volume one, this collection features the second and final quartet of novels in which Monsieur Poirot is joined by his enthusiastic sidekick Captain Hastings. Lord Edward Dies, The ABC Murders and Dumb Witness are followed by the shortest of the stories, Durtain, which is Poirot's last case. It takes the reader back to the location of his first documented adventure, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Christie wrote this well in advance of her own death, so that Poirot would not be left adrift. Moralising is one of Poirot's favourite occupations and there's a fair amount of it here, particularly in his final letter, but as always, Christie provides the reader with a well-structured plot whose predictability is part of its charm. Although Christie's Poirot novels were once perceived as being set in the racy metropolis, they are now sought out for their glimpses into an earlier world which if not less shadowed by evil, was at least less vulgar and certainly better dressed than our own. As Jane Marple is perennially associated with the villages of the Home Counties, so Poirot is not to be imagined away from the Art Deco settings which have been so well presented in the recent TV series. Readers of the modern police procedural, so dependent on the efficient and technocratic underpinnings of forensics and computer searches, may find light relief in the image of "the good Japp", the bumbling police inspector who never fails to be amazed by the productions of Poirot's little grey cells. (Kirkus UK)

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