Agatha Christie shines better in novel length, because her ability to mislead, plant red herrings and hide the actual clues works best when she has the room. As her short story collections go, this is a fine one. The conceit that connects the story is Hercule Poirot wanting to close his career solving twelve cases analogous to the mythological Hercules' twelve tasks or labours. The connection between Poirot's cases and Hercules labours is sometimes farfetched, although sometimes it fits well, like malicious rumors being analogous to the Hydra. It's entertaining, but it's not Agatha Christie's (or Poirot's best showcase), so I wouldn't advice starting here. ( )

This book is essentially a series of linked short stories, as Poirot cheers himself up by taking on cases that fit the aesthetics of his version of the classic labors of Hercules, rather than give up sleuthing all together. The TV version of this book melds together elements of many of these cases into one case, and it is fun to see the original contexts of each element. ( )

Using the Greek legend of the 12 labours of Hercules as a starting point, Christie has written 12 short stories for Hercule to investigate and solve. The legendary Nemean Lions turn into Pekinese dogs, Hydras are represented by the many headed village gossip etc.[return][return]Another great set of stories

If asked to name the labors of Hercules, I may have recalled a lion, stables, the apples of Hesperides, maybe not the girdle of Hyppolita, but I first learned about them in sixth grade (in 1956), our teacher a new grad of a program for teaching “gifted” students. We had an astronomy club that built a 6” reflecting mirror telescope, science fair projects, and classstalks—I did one on Russia since my brother subscribed to Soviet Life and I went on to study Russian in H.S. and at college, where my freshman room-mate had done the best in SAT Russian, his forbears Russian. (He went on to become a surgeon at San Francisco General and at Da Nang.)

Hercule Poirot before retiring plans to emulate the great forbear of his name, though our hero conquers despite being short and strong only of mind.

“God never intended people to live out of tins (“cans” in U.S. p.73). My cooking depends upon “tins,” as the Brits call ‘em, a soup a day. Christie writes surprisingly well, with an unsurpassed narrative grip. But also astute phrases, as when she describes Poirot’s great Miss Lemon, the secretary showing “the fusillade of typing efficiency”(198).

So many well-developed characters in various places from Ireland to Pisa, from the Russian Countess’s home in the Swiss Alps to…god knows. I must re-read chapters to portray a couple. Diane Maberly comes to Poirot because her fiancee has dumped her, worrying that he may be crazy, so shouldn't marry. Mademoiselle Maberly says her boyfriend is the sanest one she knows, but she admits there’s madness in his family. Isn’t everyone is a little mad, it’s “only when you begin thinking you’re a poached egg that they have to lock you up”(114).

As in other novels, the Belgian Poirot uses French and Gallicisms; e.g., he never uses the indefinite article, always the definite, even in colloquial phrases that call for “a,” here to the Countess: “I do not want to see you in what is called the jam”(207). But Christie writes with formidable Briticisms, as on the first page, Oxford’s Dr. Burton has godchildren, his Deidre (“of the Sorrows”) being “merry as a grig” (a small, lively person, maybe originally merry as a Greek) [1]. ( )

Delightful collection of short stories, and all with a signature Agatha Christie twist at the end.
Great vacation reading, even if it's just a mental vacation. ( )