The Monogram Murders

[sawyl]

A light read in the form of Sophie Hannah's The Monogram Murders, an officially sanctioned revival of Hercule Poirot and his little grey cells.

One evening in Pleasant's Coffee House, Hercule Poirot goes to assistance of a distraught woman who believes that someone is out to kill her. The woman departs with a cryptic remark about not opening mouths before Poirot can help, although the waiting staff are able to tell him that the woman called Jennie and is a servant to a woman who lives on the other side of London.

When Poirot returns to his boarding house — he has taken a staycation close to his own flat to avoid an endless stream visitors — he learns that one of his fellow boarders, Edward Catchpool, a Scotland Yard detective, has spent his day investigating three murders at the Bloxham Hotel. Each of the victims had been poisoned and placed in a staged position with a monogrammed cufflink in their mouth. Poirot immediately recalls the remark of the distraught woman and links his friend's case with that of Jennie.

Attending the scene of the crime, Poirot notices a number of oddities which catch his attention. Catchpool discovers that the three knew each other some time ago but seem to have gone their separate ways and appear to have arrived at the hotel individually. Poirot sends Catchpool to dig up the past in the small village where the three used to live while he remains in town pursuing leads there. Gradually, in best whodunit fashion, the threads pull together, with Poirot's investigations prompted by Catchpool's frequently slighlty inane questions until the whole plot finally becomes clear.

An enjoyable light read, Sophie Hannah does a decent job of conjuring up Poirot. Catchpool makes a decent replacement for Hastings, showing a little more depth than most sidekicks — he has a morbid reaction to corpses, a dislike of religion, and, from various dropped hints, is almost certainly gay.

The mystery is suitably complicate and Hannah obviously has fun with Poirot's tendency to keep his assistant in the dark — all in the name of allowing him room to improve his own methodology — allowing Catchpool to complain about it even as he does holds back some of the key details from his own narrative.