Name: Closed Casket
ISBN: 9780008134105

Sophie Hannah

The New Hercule Poirot Mystery

Closed Casket

Agatha Christie

Hercule Poirot, the world's most famous detective, returns in this ingenious, stylish, and altogether delicious mystery from the author of the instant bestseller The Monogram Murders. "What I intend to say to you will come as a shock..." With these words, Lady Athelinda Playford -- one of the world's most beloved children's authors -- springs a surprise on the lawyer entrusted with her will. As guests arrive for a party at her Irish mansion, Lady Playford has decided to cut off her two children without a penny . . . and leave her vast fortune to someone else: an invalid who has only weeks to live. Among Lady Playford's visitors are two strangers: the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, and Inspector Edward Catchpool of Scotland Yard. Neither knows why he has been invited -- until Poirot begins to wonder if Lady Playford expects a murder. But why does she seem so determined to provoke a killer? And why -- when the crime is committed despite Poirot's best efforts to stop it -- does the identity of the victim make no sense at all? Addictive, ferociously clever, and packed with clues, wit, and murder, Closed Casket is a triumph from the author whose work is "as tricky as anything written by Agatha Christie" (Alexander McCall Smith, The New York Times Book Review).

A New Hercule Poirot Mystery

I wanted to give this series a second chance after the disappointment of the first book. But once again I was disappointed. 

The overall story was much better than the first one (Catchpool was not as stupid as before, Poirot not as annoying as the first book) but nothing really made sense. The characters are very flat and shallow. The story telling is not so interesting. 

I don't think I'll continue this book series, I would go back to rereading the original Poirot books for a clever and interesting detective story.

Yega

I wanted to give this series a second chance after the disappointment of the first book. But once again I was disappointed. 

The overall story was much better than the first one (Catchpool was not as stupid as before, Poirot not as annoying as the first book) but nothing really made sense. The characters are very flat and shallow. The story telling is not so interesting. 

I don't think I'll continue this book series, I would go back to rereading the original Poirot books for a clever and interesting detective story.

Sarah Vaughan

I enjoyed this one so much more than The Monogram Murders. Although I went into this series not expecting it to mimic Agatha Christie's writing style to a T, I was surprised to find that it felt very different indeed. The second novel in the new Hercule Poirot series, however, is much more aligned with my vision of the great detective and his little grey cells. One of the things I do enjoyed about Agatha Christie's mysteries is her uncanny ability to understand human nature and motives. I found this story to include much more insight into the motives of characters than The Monogram Murders. I enjoyed the setting, the characters, and was ultimately satisfied with the ending, albeit I was expecting something different. I look forward to reading more of Sophie Hannah's Poirot mysteries.

Mircea Tara

A nice little mystery. 
Unfortunately my theory and murderer of choosing would have been much more interesting than the actual murderer in the book. Although it follows in the Agatha's footsteps, some pages read dry and the explanation of the whole issue was a bit drab.
Poirot's verbal tics were quite on point, so all in all it was a pleasant read.

Tae Thompson

4.5 stars 
I loved the book and each character was amazing and the ending was amazing and I can say I guessed the killer but how it eased caught me completely off guard.

Christine Liu

Well, I'm officially not a fan. I read Sophie Hannah's first Poirot book, The Monogram Murders, a few years ago, and it was so bad, I can't even describe to you how bad. The only other one of her books I've read was Little Face, and that book was such a nonsensical mess that I was actually angry at myself for finishing it. So why did I even read this book? Maybe to prove to myself that my opinion of the first new Poirot novel wasn't overly dramatic. I don't know. In any case, it was the wrong decision, and from now on I'll stick to rereading the original novels when I feel the need to revisit Poirot's adventures.

In Closed Casket, Hercule Poirot puts his little grey cells to work once again. He, along with Scotland Yard detective Edward Catchpool, are invited to the home of a celebrated children's mystery author who announces at dinner that she has changed her will, leaving her entire fortune to her terminally ill secretary rather than her two awful children. It's an interesting premise, but the story falls pretty quickly into incoherence from there. When Poirot intuits, somewhat inexplicably, that the whole thing is a setup for a murder and insists on waking everyone up in the middle of the night, they discover that someone has indeed been killed. What follows is one of the most outlandishly convoluted plots I've ever had to slog through.

My main complaint is that the writing here is sloppy and amateurish. The story makes very little sense. It's full of farfetched motivations, explanations that defy logic, and people in silly disguises. Poirot, who initially expressed to Catchpool that he knew what was afoot from the moment he arrived at the house, becomes suddenly clueless, bumbling from conversation to conversation, seemingly unable to comprehend anything that anyone says, ever. Every character is a one-dimensional caricature, and there's no development whatsoever. Most of them are either hysterical or sociopathic, or both, and we don't see much else to them. The dialogue is truly painful. Poirot is weirdly passive aggressive for no reason. Everyone speaks in the same way and has the same tendency to overshare and over-explain things in casual conversations with complete strangers. The conversations as a whole are artificial and inauthentic and just… strange.

Overall, this book was a huge disappointment, as a mystery novel in general and especially as a story involving a brilliant literary detective who here is turned into an empty husk of a character. Look, I get that no one is Agatha Christie, and that's fine. But there are plenty of mystery writers out there who are just as good or sometimes better, and it's frustrating that these continuation books are being handled so ineptly. Even taken on its own, this is a heavy handed and clumsily constructed mystery. Please stop letting Sophie Hannah write these, I BEG. They are just not good.

Megan Murray 

Kate Lillie

Anna

Ruth Muscat

Julia Morrison

Taylor🩸

Lizzy Grayson

Johanna Kenrick

Ryan B Harvey

The world's most famous detective returns in this ingenious, stylish, and altogether delicious mystery from the author of the instant bestseller The Monogram Murders ("I was thrilled" -- Gillian Flynn). "What I intend to say to you will come as a shock..." With these words, Lady Athelinda Playford -- one of the world's most beloved children's authors -- springs a surprise on the lawyer entrusted with her will. As guests arrive for a party at her Irish mansion, Lady Playford has decided to cut off her two children without a penny . . . and leave her vast fortune to someone else: an invalid who has only weeks to live. Among Lady Playford's visitors are two strangers: the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, and Inspector Edward Catchpool of Scotland Yard. Neither knows why he has been invited -- until Poirot begins to wonder if Lady Playford expects a murder. But why does she seem so determined to provoke a killer? And why -- when the crime is committed despite Poirot's best efforts to stop it -- does the identity of the victim make no sense at all? Addictive, ferociously clever, and packed with clues, wit, and murder, Closed Casket is a triumph from the author whose work is "as tricky as anything written by Agatha Christie" (Alexander McCall Smith, The New York Times Book Review).

Closed Casket The New Hercule Poirot Mystery