The adventure of the Christmas pudding (and a selection of entrees) (by Agatha Christie)

(Amazon UK link)

'The adventure of the Christmas pudding' is the main title of a collection of two longish short stories, and four short ones by Agatha Christie. She is probably the world's best known light crime writer from the middle of the 20th century. The first five stories feature Hercule Poirot, and the last involves Miss Marple.

I thought the longer stories were pretty good, and particularly enjoyed the Christmas Pudding one. It revolved around an old-fashioned country Christmas mixed up with the theft of a jewel. Poirot comes across well, and the author even slightly pokes fun at detective stories in general.

However I felt that the short stories were all rather disappointing. Because of being so short, there's no real characterisation; yet crime stories tend to rely rather on understanding the personalities involved. So the detectives made what appeared to be intuitive guesses that were impossible for a casual reader.

I think this author generally does better with full-length novels which give her a chance to get deeper into the psyche of each of the characters, since she doesn't tend to use much fast action or (thankfully) any gore or horror to pad out her books.

Still, these weren't bad stories to while away a couple of hours. Just not the usual enjoyable logic puzzles that can be solved by careful observation from a reader.