The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding

Parties gone awry
central heating and fine food
an old man's delight.

I have been read Agatha Christie since my teens, and for the first time I feel that I have been shortchanged - not sooner that I get into the story, it ends abruptly! Maybe I have been spoiled with the David Suchet adaptations!

As with most short story collections, this is a mixed bag of Christie's curios.

The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding
A nice Christmassy feel to what is a fairly slight, light hearted story.

The Mystery of the Spanish Chest
At the end of the story, Poirot calls this the perfect murder as Jock McLaren was able to remove two rivals - one by murdering him, and the other by framing him for the murder.

A perfect murder how? McLaren drugged Clayton's drink at the club... and then what? He anticipated Clayton sending himself a fake telegram and hiding in the chest during a party at a friend's house? More likely is that Clayton falls asleep in the cab and Mr. Perfect Murderer is left going “Uhhhhh...“

The Under Dog
A somewhat convoluted mystery which is given away by the title of the story. Honestly, I have to say I was lost throughout as to which character was which and who was in what room at what time. There are strange moments too as Poirot invites himself to stay in the house for weeks playing games on the inhabitants which involve him taking their fingerprints and measuring their shoe size. I was reminded of the titular character in Stephen Leacock's hilarious short story The Awful Fate of Melpomenus Jones who overstays his welcome while everybody else curses his presence.

Four and Twenty Blackbirds
A fun little curiosity involving an imposter.

The Dream
I guessed the resolution here early on probably because, again, it involves an imposter. Not a plot that makes much sense though. If the killers want to plant the seed of suicide, there are plenty of ways to do it without going about it the way they did. If they were intent on following through this plan though, why on earth would you involve one of the world's most famous investigators in your crime? Why not just use one of the newspaper men to get that idea out?

Greenshaw's Folly
Yet another imposter! Actually, this was the most enjoyable story in the collection for me. Unfortunately, it's let down by a slight plot hole. They want to pin the murder on the young gardener, but it's undone when the gardener leaves for lunch ten minutes early and therefore has an alibi. The murderers are aware that he often leaves for lunch early, so why on earth did they plan the murder for around that time? Why not do it an hour or two earlier?