Before retiring, Hercule Poirot decides to take exactly twelve more cases, each chosen to echo one of the labours performed by his classical namesake.
He looks nothing like a Greek hero and says so, but the parallel holds: both spent their working lives removing monsters from circulation. The conceit gives Agatha Christie an unusual structure, with each story matched to a labour and each solution required to work as a crime puzzle and as a piece of the larger pattern at the same time. The cases range widely in tone, from the almost comic to the genuinely dark, and the collection is often singled out for how neatly its framing device and its detection fit together.
At a glance:
• Twelve linked short cases built around the classical labours
• Poirot at the end of his career, choosing his own assignments
• A framing conceit that shapes the shape of every story in the book
• Readable independently of the full-length Poirot novels
For crime readers who enjoy short-form Christie, available from Boipoka.
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