The New York Times Book Review - Alexander McCall Smith
Does Sophie Hannah's Poirot live up to our expectations? Yes, he does, and markedly so…The Monogram Murders is both faithful to the character and an entirely worthy addition to the canon…The plot is as tricky as anything written by Agatha Christie. Nothing is obvious or predictable in this very difficult Sudoku of a novel. The Monogram Murders has a life and freshness of its own. Poirot is still Poirot. Poirot is back.
From the Publisher
Sophie Hannah does an egoless, silky job of reviving Agatha Christie’s beloved Belgian detective Hercule Poirot...enough so to hope that Hannah turns to Miss Marple next.” — USA Today
“Christie herself, some might say, could do no better.... Enough twists, turns, revelations and suspects to cook up a most satisfying red-herring stew. Literary magic.” — Washington Post
“Does Sophie Hannah’s Poirot live up to our expectations? Yes, he does, and markedly so.... As tricky as anything written by Agatha Christie. The Monogram Murders has a life and freshness of its own. Poirot is still Poirot. Poirot is back.” — Alexander McCall Smith, New York Times bestselling author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
“Perfect...a pure treat.” — Tana French, New York Times-bestselling author of The Secret Place
“Terrific.... uncanny. As Hercule Poirot himself would say, ‘Bravo, Madame Hannah. Bravo.’ ” — Boston Globe
“Sophie Hannah is a prodigious talent. I can’t wait to see what she does next.” — Laura Lippman
“Sophie Hannah’s idea for a plot line was so compelling and her passion for my grandmother’s work so strong, that we felt that the time was right for a new Christie to be written.” — Mathew Prichard, grandson of Agatha Christie
“Sharply written and rigorously plotted, this Poirot mystery rivals many of Christie’s own.” — NPR
“Equal parts charming and ingenious, dark and quirky and utterly engaging…I was thrilled to see Poirot in such very, very good hands. Reading The Monogram Murders was like returning to a favorite room of a long-lost home.” — Gillian Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Gone Girl
“Sophie Hannah’s The Monogram Murders does Christie proud. Our favorite detective is back and in impeccable form!” — Charles Todd, New York Times bestselling author of An Unwilling Accomplice
USA Today
Sophie Hannah does an egoless, silky job of reviving Agatha Christie’s beloved Belgian detective Hercule Poirot...enough so to hope that Hannah turns to Miss Marple next.
NPR
Sharply written and rigorously plotted, this Poirot mystery rivals many of Christie’s own.
Laura Lippman
Sophie Hannah is a prodigious talent. I can’t wait to see what she does next.
Charles Todd
Sophie Hannah’s The Monogram Murders does Christie proud. Our favorite detective is back and in impeccable form!
Mathew Prichard
Sophie Hannah’s idea for a plot line was so compelling and her passion for my grandmother’s work so strong, that we felt that the time was right for a new Christie to be written.
Gillian Flynn
Equal parts charming and ingenious, dark and quirky and utterly engaging…I was thrilled to see Poirot in such very, very good hands. Reading The Monogram Murders was like returning to a favorite room of a long-lost home.
Washington Post
Christie herself, some might say, could do no better.... Enough twists, turns, revelations and suspects to cook up a most satisfying red-herring stew. Literary magic.
Tana French
Perfect...a pure treat.
Alexander McCall Smith
Does Sophie Hannah’s Poirot live up to our expectations? Yes, he does, and markedly so.... As tricky as anything written by Agatha Christie. The Monogram Murders has a life and freshness of its own. Poirot is still Poirot. Poirot is back.
Boston Globe
Terrific.... uncanny. As Hercule Poirot himself would say, ‘Bravo, Madame Hannah. Bravo.’
USA Today
Sophie Hannah does an egoless, silky job of reviving Agatha Christie’s beloved Belgian detective Hercule Poirot...enough so to hope that Hannah turns to Miss Marple next.
Washington Post
Christie herself, some might say, could do no better.... Enough twists, turns, revelations and suspects to cook up a most satisfying red-herring stew. Literary magic.
Kirkus Reviews
2014-09-09
Hercule Poirot, last spotted in Charles Osborne's novelization Black Coffee (1998), returns from retirement to investigate a triple poisoning in 1929 London. It doesn't take long for Poirot to realize why the woman he encounters in Pleasant's Coffee House is all in a dither. She's afraid that she's about to be killed, and she can't bring herself to run from her killer, since death is no more than she deserves. She flees before he can pin her down to specifics, but he soon links her to three deaths at the nearby Bloxham Hotel. Each of the guests—retired lawyer Richard Negus, his former fiancee, Ida Gransbury, and their old friend Harriet Sippel—arrived separately the day before; each was poisoned with cyanide, then neatly laid out on the floor; and each is found with a monogrammed cufflink in his or her mouth shortly after someone turns in a note to the Bloxham's front desk with their three room numbers and the epitaph, "MAY THEY NEVER REST IN PEACE." Clearly this triple homicide has roots too deep for Poirot's temporary housemate, Detective Edward Catchpool of Scotland Yard, to fathom. So Poirot attaches himself to the case, uncovering evidence about the victims' shared past in a village scandal 16 years ago, alternately lecturing and hectoring Catchpool, and sounding very little like Agatha Christie's legendary sleuth except for the obligatory French tags. Hannah, a specialist in psychological suspense (The Orphan Choir, 2014, etc.), would seem an odd choice for the job of resurrecting Poirot. The main strengths she brings to her task are a formidable ingenuity and a boundless appetite for reviewing the same evidence over and over again. The herrings-within-herrings denouement, which goes on for 100 pages, hovers between tour de force and unintentional farce. Despite the names and dates, this authorized sequel will remind you less of Christie, whose strengths are very different from Hannah's, than of the dozens of other pastiches of golden age detective fiction among which it takes its place.
