The Monogram Murders: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery (New Hercule Poirot Mystery, #1)

by Sophie Hannah

Christie (Creator) and Agatha Christie (Creator)

The new Hercule Poirot novel – another brilliant murder mystery that can only be solved by the eponymous Belgian detective and his ‘little grey cells’.

Since the publication of her first book in 1920, Agatha Christie wrote 33 novels, two plays and more than 50 short stories featuring Hercule Poirot. Now, for the first time ever, the guardians of her legacy have approved a brand new novel featuring Dame Agatha's most beloved creation.

Hercule Poirot's quiet supper in a London coffee house is interrupted when a young woman confides to him that she is about to be murdered. She is terrified, but begs Poirot not to find and punish her killer. Once she is dead, she insists, justice will have been done.

Later that night, Poirot learns that three guests at the fashionable Bloxham Hotel have been murdered, a cufflink placed in each one’s mouth. Could there be a connection with the frightened woman? While Poirot struggles to put together the bizarre pieces of the puzzle, the murderer prepares another hotel bedroom for a fourth victim…

In the hands of internationally bestselling author Sophie Hannah, Poirot plunges into a mystery set in 1920s London – a diabolically clever puzzle that can only be solved by the talented Belgian detective and his ‘little grey cells’.

• ISBN13: 9780007547418
• Publish Date: 9 September 2014 (first published 1 September 2014)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 15 October 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 384
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.co.uk

Reviews

[brokentune]

0.5*

I have tried to finish this book so many times this week, but The Monogram Murders is not only utterly crap it's also bloody endless. It drags, and drags, and drags.

The last 30% of the book just felt like the story of who did what changed on every page and I completely lost track of what happened.
You know, that fabulous spoof of the mystery genre that is Murder by Death (the film)?
Every character comes up with a different version of the solution, and they are all wrong.

In this book, the same thing happened, but the different versions were not put forward by different characters but by the book's version of Poirot (a poor shadow of Christie's original creation), which made the last 30% of the book absolutely unbearable. And unlike Murder by Death, this book was not a spoof of the genre.

No. The only word that comes to my mind to describe this book was: painful.

None of the plot made sense. Poirot is not Poirot. The writing lacks the complexity and charm and atmosphere that Christie's books have.

The portrayal of women in this book didn't work for me - it was in parts downright offensive - and it certainly did not do a book justice that is supposed to be a continuation of Christie's oeuvre.

The romance subplots were ridiculous.

And last, but definitely worst of all, was that the book was narrated from the POV of a character that has no justification of even being in the story. He's the most incompetent policeman or even amateur detective that I can imagine.

Needless to say, I have no interest in reading any other books in the series.