Hercule Poirot's Christmas

Plot summary

An aging, wealthy man named Simeon Lee does something out of character: he asks his family to spend Christmas with him. The invitation is met with distrust, as Simeon is known for being cold and his relatives are deeply divided, especially over the estranged son Harry. He has also tracked down his late daughter Jennifer’s child, a Spanish-born orphan named Pilar Estravados, and invited her to live with him. The siblings have never met their niece before, and they find her charming.

Simeon, however, is not being kind; he is deliberately toying with their emotions. On Christmas Eve, a surprise guest named Stephen Farr arrives. He is the son of Simeon’s old business partner from the diamond mines, and Simeon welcomes him warmly. That afternoon, Simeon gathers the family to listen as he speaks on the phone with his lawyer, saying he plans to change his will after Christmas.

This vague news stirs resentment among his sons and their wives. After dinner, several people hear furniture crashing and a terrible scream from Simeon’s room. They rush there, find the door locked, and break it down. Inside, heavy furniture is overturned, dishes are smashed, and Simeon lies dead with his throat cut in a large pool of blood.

Before anyone can call for help, the local police superintendent is already at the front door. Superintendent Sugden notices Pilar pick something up from the floor and insists she hand over a small piece of rubber and a wooden peg. Sugden explains he was at the house by prior arrangement because Simeon had told him about a large theft of uncut diamonds from his safe. Poirot joins Colonel Johnson to investigate the murder.

Many questions arise: how could the victim be killed in a locked room? Is the murder linked to the missing diamonds? And what do the small rubber triangle and the wooden peg mean?

Literary significance and reception

Isaac Anderson, writing in the New York Times Book Review on February 12, 1939, declared that Poirot’s intellect had never shone more brightly than in this novel, which he referred to as Murder for Christmas. A few weeks earlier, on December 18, 1938, the reviewer known as Torquemada in The Observer offered a defensive assessment. He argued that the book was indeed a major Christie, despite what he called an irrelevant twist involving the character Pilar Estravados and the fact that the central scream might not puzzle the average reader.

Torquemada praised Christie for brazenly showing the murderer to the audience while still keeping the identity hidden. He acknowledged that some purists might object that Christie broke a major rule of detective fiction to achieve this effect, but he maintained that in a Poirot story, the reader should beware, and that the rules did not apply to Christie. E. R. Punshon, reviewing for The Guardian on January 13, 1939, noted that Poirot’s careful reasoning builds a convincing case against every family member in turn, leaving the reader baffled until the famous confrontation scene reveals the true culprit.

Punshon stated that in this type of detective novel, which relies on logical deduction from recorded facts while still featuring recognizable human characters, Christie remains unmatched. He conceded that she leans too heavily on coincidence and manufactured effects, but he considered such flaws minor compared to the brilliance of the overall work.

Publication history

The novel was first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 19 December 1938 as a hardback of 256 pages, retailing at seven shillings and sixpence. In the US, Dodd, Mead and Company published it in February 1939 under the title Murder for Christmas, a hardback of 272 pages priced at $2.00. A paperback edition by Avon Books in 1947 changed the title to A Holiday for Murder, running 255 pages. Subsequent editions include Fontana Books (1957, 189 pp), Bantam Books (1962, 167 pp), Pan Books (1967, 204 pp), and Greenway collected works editions in 1973 and 1974.

The book was first serialised in the US in Collier's Weekly in ten parts from 12 November 1938 to 14 January 1939 under the title Murder For Christmas, with illustrations by Mario Cooper. The UK serialisation ran in twenty parts in the Daily Express from 14 November to 10 December 1938 under the title Murder at Christmas, without chapter divisions.

Adaptations

The 1994 television adaptation of Hercule Poirot's Christmas aired in the UK on 25 December as a special episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot, with David Suchet in the lead role. While largely faithful to the novel, it omits several characters. Chief Constable Colonel Johnson is replaced by the regular series character Chief Inspector Japp. Stephen Farr is absent, and his romantic storyline with Pilar is transferred to Harry.

Sugden's mother is given a South African background. Hilda and David Lee do not appear. Exterior shots were filmed in Chilham, Kent, with Chilham Castle standing in for Gorston Hall. A minor backstory explains Poirot's reluctance to travel: his radiator fails, and the staff at Whitehaven Mansions refuse to fix it until after Christmas, prompting him to ask Simeon Lee about central heating before leaving.

A French television adaptation, Petits Meurtres en famille, aired on France 2 in 2006 and 2009 across four parts. It replaces Poirot with a new duo of characters unrelated to him, and none of the novel's names are retained. The plot is only loosely adapted, though Agatha Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard, reportedly called it the best television adaptation he had seen. Another French series, Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie, adapted the novel in 2018, but removed both the Christmas setting and Poirot.

A BBC Radio 4 adaptation aired on 24 December 1986, featuring Peter Sallis as Poirot; it was the second Poirot radio adaptation. The character Pilar Estravados was reused in Kenneth Branagh's film Murder on the Orient Express, played by Penélope Cruz, replacing Greta Ohlsson.