Poirot’s Early Cases: 18 Hercule Poirot Mysteries

Many of Poirot’s early cases are short stories. With each one, Poirot further proves his reputation as the greatest mind in detective fiction. In “The Plymouth Express,” the body of the daughter of a wealthy American industrialist is found stuffed under a train seat. “Problem at Sea” finds a disliked rich woman murdered in a locked room on a ship. “The King of Clubs” involves a prince, his dancer fiancée, and a fiendish bit of blackmail. There are 15 more!

This “Mystery Masters” audiobook includes all the tales, unabridged, from the print book first published in 1974. These gems are alternately read by David Suchet and Hugh Fraser, whose roles as, respectively, Poirot and his sidekick, Captain Hugh Hastings, in PBS’s “Mystery!” series and the Arts and Entertainment’s “Poirot” series are considered definitive.

This collection contains the following stories: 1) The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly, 2) The Adventure of the Clapham Cook, 3) The Affair of the Victory Ball, 4) The Chocolate Box, 5) The Cornish Mystery, 6) The Double Clue, 7) Double Sin, 8) How Does Your Garden Grow?, 9) The King of Clubs, 10) The Lemesurier Inheritance, 11) Lost Mine, 12) Market Basing Mystery, 13) The Plymouth Express, 14) Problem at Sea, 15) The Submarine Plans, 16) The Third-Floor Flat, 17) The Veiled Lady, and 18) Wasps’ Nest.

Librarian’s note: this entry is for the collection of short stories, “Poirot’s Early Cases.” Entries for the individual titles can be found elsewhere on Goodreads. All Agatha Christie’s Poirot short stories can be found by searching Goodreads for: “a Hercule Poirot Short Story.”