THE MONOGRAM MURDERS
Since the publication of her first book in 1920, Agatha Christie wrote 33 novels, two plays and more than 50 short stories featuring Hercule Poirot. Now, for the first time ever, the guardians of her legacy have approved a brand new novel featuring Dame Agatha’s most beloved creation.
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 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 the talented Belgian detective and his ‘little grey cells’.
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REVIEWS
“Superbly orchestrated…as exhilaratingly complicated as anything by Christie. Poirot’s theatricality, his OCD traits, his combination of tenderness and cruelty – all are captured to perfection.’”
Sunday Times
“Does Sophie Hannah’s Poirot live up to our expectations? Yes, he does, and markedly so…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.”
New York Times
“Hannah gets it right in every particular. Her extraordinary feat is to make the reader forget very quickly that the novel is not, in fact, written by Dame Agatha herself.”
The Times, UK
“A cracking mystery. As Hercule Poirot himself would say, “Bravo, Madame Hannah. Bravo.”
Boston Globe, US
“Infused with such love and energy. Poirot is here exactly as Christie created him, with a vitality that recalls her very best novels…Poirot purists will be in seventh heaven. [Hannah] makes her characters seem like living, breathing people: especially a certain preposterous Belgian with an absurd moustache.”
Daily Telegraph, UK
“Christie herself, some might say, could do no better. Conspiracies and lies abound in Hannah’s colorful narrative and will keep readers guessing about the killer until the unexpected and most satisfying conclusion. I’d challenge any Christie-phile to find differences between her distinctive writing style and Hannah’s mirroring of it. Either Hannah is exercising her creative powers over the legend of Poirot, or Christie, a devotee of spiritualism, is channeling stories to Hannah from the grave.”
Washington Post, US
“Within the first few pages of The Monogram Murders it is obvious that we are in safe hands. Sophie Hannah has written a novel that not only would have delighted the Queen of Crime, but her rather more highbrow sister in suspense Patricia Highsmith too… The novel 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.”
Independent
“A delicious read.”
Financial Times
“Christie’s great strength was her ability to make each page throw the hook for the next. She offered the easiest read and had the steadiest of hands, remaining faithful to Conan Doyle’s formula of omission and disguise – withholding, with the aid of the Belgian control-freak, the “whodunit” to the very end. Hannah has honoured this tradition deftly. Another mirrored tradition is the reliance on dialogue to propel the plot. Here Hannah has caught Poirot’s wonderfully unidiomatic English so well that one can all but hear David Suchet speaking….Sophie Hannah has done justice to the champion deceiver.”
Sydney Morning Herald
“Joyously intricate; immaculately executed.”
Observer
“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
“Sophie Hannah had large boots to fill…Nevertheless, she manages it with considerable wit, charm and ingenuity. The result is a highly readable locked-room mystery with a delectable twist.”
Mail on Sunday