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The volume containing four short stories is from Agatha Christie's most productive and best period. Although the length of the short story does not allow Monsieur Poirot to unfold his brilliant abilities in their full glory, he still bears witness to them in all four parts of the volume. Because of course, they are about what they are about: murders, suicides, espionage and other mysteries, but there is also a family tragedy in the volume. The last piece, which is more like a short story - a foreshadowing of the Holiday Murderers that came out not long later - apparently pleased its author so much that he developed the basic idea into a full novel. Each one is interesting stories, with excellent character sketches. Anyone who might think that a crime story cannot be developed in such a short piece is mistaken. Monsieur Poirot does his job in a shorter time, even with a more modest length. A lucky collection – it seems that the author decided to write it from scratch, in one go, and the volume was not cut and pasted together afterwards.