Before we get started, I just wanted to let you know that I will be having a little holiday and so, there will be no posts next week. We have a rather important birthday to celebrate in our household and so I'm having a week's break. I will be back on 8th February with more reading delights and probably a Christmas book or two.

At the time of writing, it is currently the middle of January, and I am not quite ready to give up reading my Christmas books just yet. Especially as it is snowing outside. I had already enjoyed Hercule Poirot's Christmas over the festive period and decided to turn to another Christmas collection of short stories featuring Hercule Poirot and to my delight, Miss Marple.

Read the review of Hercule Poirot's Christmas

This is a collection of 5 stories starting with the Adventures of the Christmas Pudding which, it turns out, is the only Christmassy story in the book. But it is a good one!

Poirot visits a country house following the theft of a precious ruby. 3 teenagers decide to play a trick on him by pretending that they have discovered a dead body and then during the trick, they discover a real body! Is this murder linked to the missing jewel?

In the Mystery of the Spanish Chest, Arnold Clayton, due to attend an evening party. is called away to Scotland to settle a land deal. In the morning following the party, his body is discovered in Spanish chest in the room where the party was held. Hercule is called upon to investigate.

During a visit to Greenshaw's Folly, Miss Marple and the Housekeeper become locked in their rooms and witness the owner of the Folly being shot by an arrow in the garden below their windows. Everyone present has an alibi, but all evidence points to the young gardener, but how could he have murdered her when he was in the pub drinking?

I am a huge fan of Miss Marple and am warming to Hercule Poirot. It has been interesting to compare and contrast the two detecting styles. Hercule is pernickety and precise, sometimes difficult, but at times he is a wonderful confidante for distressed ladies, calming, friendly and inviting confidences. By the same breath he can also be tough and unyielding. Miss Marple, on the other hand relies on people's assumption of her as a twittery 'old pussy'. She compares suspects with people in St Mary's Mead, all with suspicious natures and capable of committing the most foul of crimes.

I enjoy reading Agatha Christie, but I did feel a little disappointed that with the exception of The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, these were not Christmas stories. I mean the cover has a Christmas Pudding on it! The crimes are fiendish and I always have great fun trying to guess who the murderer is, but I found myself preferring Hercule Poirot's Christmas which is one story, investigating a murder in a country house at Christmas. But this was enjoyable nonetheless