Hercule Poirot's Christmas (Agatha Christie)

'There is, at Christmas, a spirit of goodwill. People who do not feel amiable are putting great pressure on themselves to appear amiable! If you dam the stream of natural behaviour, mon ami, sooner or later the dam bursts and a cataclysm occurs!'

It is Christmas Eve. The Lee family reunion is shattered by a deafening crash of furniture, followed by a high-pitched wailing scream. Upstairs, the tyrannical Simeon Lee lies dead in a pool of blood, his throat slashed.

But when Hercule Poirot, who is staying in the village with a friend for Christmas, offers to assist, he finds an atmosphere not of mourning but of mutual suspicion. It seems everyone had their own reason to hate the old man...

Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in over 100 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, over 20 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.