The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding

Book excerpt: An English country house at Christmas time, with its crackling log fires and fine food, may seem an incongruous setting for a crime -- but a sinister note left on his pillow tells Hercule Poirot everything is not as it seems. The great detective plays his cards close to his chest -- until the discovery of a young woman lying in the snow, a Kurdish knife in the centre of a crimson stain on her white wrap, spurs Poirot into revealing his hand. Seven cases in which Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple prove conclusively that their powers of detection take the cake…