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A review by lesserjoke
The Labours of Hercules by Agatha Christie
3.0
The loose thread linking the twelve detective stories in this collection is that Hercule Poirot is planning to retire, but first wants to solve a sequence of grand cases mirroring the legendary feats of his namesake, the Greco-Roman demigod Hercules. Honestly, though, that's largely a distraction, especially as most of the tasks that ensue represent fairly strained parallels at best. (Is convincing a town to stop gossiping about a widower they suspect of murder akin to successfully cutting off all the heads of the mythical Hydra? Sure, kind of, maybe. Is cracking a ring of dognappers like wrestling the Nemean Lion? That's significantly harder to justify.)
Outside of the odd framing device and the fact that we know the investigator is not truly giving up his practice anytime soon, these tales fluctuate between just okay and pretty good. Of course, as ever with author Agatha Christie's short fiction, it tends to be a bit easier to figure out the solutions yourself than in her full-length novels -- look for proof that people really are who they say they are and you're often halfway there already. But it's a solid entry overall, and not one to miss as you work your way through the series.
[Content warning for antisemitism, sexism, racism including slurs, gun violence, suicide, drug abuse, and gaslighting.]
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Outside of the odd framing device and the fact that we know the investigator is not truly giving up his practice anytime soon, these tales fluctuate between just okay and pretty good. Of course, as ever with author Agatha Christie's short fiction, it tends to be a bit easier to figure out the solutions yourself than in her full-length novels -- look for proof that people really are who they say they are and you're often halfway there already. But it's a solid entry overall, and not one to miss as you work your way through the series.
[Content warning for antisemitism, sexism, racism including slurs, gun violence, suicide, drug abuse, and gaslighting.]
Like this review?
--Throw me a quick one-time donation here!
https://ko-fi.com/lesserjoke
--Subscribe here to support my writing and weigh in on what I read next!
https://patreon.com/lesserjoke
--Follow along on Goodreads here!
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6288479-joe-kessler
--Or click here to browse through all my previous reviews!
https://lesserjoke.home.blog