The Monogram Murders

by Sophie Hannah

This is a "New Hercule Poirot Mystery".  As it has been a while since I have read an Agatha Christie novel I can't say how close to the original the work is from a writing perspective.  However, the author does a splendid job of representing the character of Poirot and his little idiosyncrasies. 

The story takes place in England.  Poirot is retired and visiting a local restaurant for a cup of coffee.  A frantic young woman enters and says she is going to be killed and deserves to be.  She insists that Poirot promise he will not seek out her murderer. Then she runs away.  Poirot is worried about her and tries to follow her, unsuccessfully.

Then he learns from a fellow boarder, a detective, Mr. Catchpool, that there has been a triple murder at a nearby hotel.  All three people, two women and one man, have one monogrammed cufflink, with the initials PIJ in their mouths and they are laid out as if at a funeral.  Mr. Catchpool ask Poirot to assist with the investigation of the crime.  They get evidence from a witness that he saw a woman running from the hotel who dropped two hotel keys on the ground as she was leaving the hotel.  She did stop and retrieve them before running away.  The man recognizes her as a somewhat famous portrait artist.

It turns out that all three of the dead once lived in a small village.  Mr Catchpool is dispatched to the village to find out about the three dead.  He learns that a vicar and his wife committed suicide a number of years before and that the three dead individuals had been fomenting dissent in the village about the vicar.  They were claiming he was summoning spirits for a fee.  Another village woman claims that she was in love with the vicar and that was why she was visiting him when his wife was not around.  This woman is the artist the witness claims he saw leaving the hotel.  The scandal about the vicar was started by a young serving girl.  The vicious neighbours took her claim and used it to accuse him of all sorts of bad things.

Then a fourth hotel room is found with blood on the floor.  They found out that the serving girl from the village is the young woman Poirot met in the restaurant.  He fears that she has been murdered as she was the one to check into that room.

As the story progresses Poirot looses patience with Catchpool often because he doesn't seem to observe things carefully or be as passionately committed to solving the crimes as Poirot seems to think he should be.  He often challenges him to figure things out for himself.

When the young woman is found alive she claims that there was a suicide pact amongst the three people who hounded the vicar and herself and she is supposed to make sure that the artist is framed for the murders.

This turns out to be not quite the truth.

It was an entertaining read, certainly in the spirit and character of a real Agatha Christie mystery.