The Monogram Murders

I’m not convinced that stories from real life have beginnings and ends, as a matter of fact. Approach them from any vantage point and you’ll see that they stretch endlessly back into the past and spread inexorably forward into the future. The first of Sophie Hannah’s brand new murder mysteries that can only be solved by the eponymous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and his 'little grey cells'. Hercule Poirot's quiet supper in a London coffee house is interrupted when a young woman confides to him that she is about to be murdered. She is terrified, but begs Poirot not to find and punish her killer. Once she is dead, she insists, justice will have been done. Later that night, Poirot learns that three guests at the fashionable Bloxham Hotel have been murdered; a monogrammed cufflink placed in each one's mouth. Could there be a connection with the frightened woman? While Poirot struggles to put together the bizarre pieces of the puzzle, the murderer prepares another hotel bedroom for a fourth victim... In the hands of internationally bestselling author Sophie Hannah, Poirot plunges into a mystery set in 1920s London - a diabolically clever puzzle that can only be solved by one man. You can also read Sophie Hannah’s second foray into the fiendish world of Christie in Closed Casket with the third, The Mystery of Three Quarters out August 2018. ‘The novel – which has a rich skein of black humour running through it – is immensely satisfying on many levels, including its ingenious ending. At the close of the book, Poirot states, "The best artists, they have the eye for detail and for structure: how all the components fit together". By Poirot's standards, Hannah is a gifted artist indeed.’ – The Independent

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