The Monogram Murders

This is the 1st installment of Sophie Hannah's authorized continuation of Agatha Christie's "Hercule Poirot" series of mysteries (see also my post on The Mystery of Three Quarters). In Booklist's starred review, they praise that "Hannah... proves more than capable at re-creating the legendary Belgian detective, who once again puts his little grey cells to good use, this time in unraveling an exquisitely tangled triple murder."Also giving this a starred review, Library Journal agrees that Hannah "has re-created the sleuth's voice and character as true to the original as anyone could."

Publishers Weekly offers this summary: "One evening in February 1929, Hercule Poirot is dining alone at a London coffee shop when a woman arrives who looks as if she had "come face to face with the devil." Poirot joins the distraught woman, known at first as Jennie, who tells the sleuth that no one can help her because she's "already dead," and that no one should search for her killer. "The crime must never be solved," she proclaims. Another cryptic remark Jennie makes before fleeing into the night-"please let no one open their mouths"-resonates with Poirot and Insp. Edward Catchpool, the Scotland Yard detective ... after two women and a man are found poisoned in a hotel near Piccadilly Circus, each with a monogrammed gold cuff link inserted in his or her mouth. The rest of the novel lives up to the promise of the opening, complete with dazzling deductions, subtle cluing, false endings, and superb prose."

I am more inclined toward the review from Kirkus: "So Poirot attaches himself to the case, ... alternately lecturing and hectoring Catchpool, and sounding very little like Agatha Christie’s legendary sleuth except for the obligatory French tags. Hannah... would seem an odd choice for the job of resurrecting Poirot. The main strengths she brings to her task are a formidable ingenuity and a boundless appetite for reviewing the same evidence over and over again. The herrings-within-herrings denouement, which goes on for 100 pages, hovers between tour de force and unintentional farce." 

The Mystery of Three Quarters

This posthumous continuation of Agatha Chritie's "Hercule Poirot" series by Sophie Hannah does a decent job of capturing the dialog and process of the original Poirot. It is a sort of closed room mystery where everyone who could possibly have murdered Barnabas Pandy has an alibi. And was it a murder? The official verdict is the aged man fell asleep in the bathtub and drowned. But 4 letters have been sent accusing people of the murder and the letters are signed ostensibly by Hercule Poirot. Of course he didn't send the letters but the recipients are unconvinced and are bringing their wrath down on Poirot's head. He has to solve the crime just to exonerate himself. 

This is Hannah's 3rd outing with the revenant Poirot and Publishers Weekly says she offers "another ingeniously deceptive puzzle." They go on to conclude: "The gratifying reveal is a neat variation on one of Christie’s own solutions and demonstrates Hannah’s facility at combining her own plotting gifts with another author’s creation."

Library Journal praises, "Resurrecting a character as famous and beloved as Poirot is not for the faint-of-heart writer, and Hannah's third installment in her reboot (after The Monogram Murders and Closed Casket) is her best yet. It rings true to -Agatha Christie's original writing, capturing the character of Poirot. VERDICT Enthusiastically recommended for fans of Hannah's other Poirot novels and detective fiction and Christie's original works." Booklist gives the book a starred review and opens with "It's a puzzle worthy of the skills of legendary detective Hercule Poirot..." and continues, "Poirot looks for connections between Pandy and the four recipients, and among the recipients themselves, scheduling his customary reveal with all parties present before he cracks the case, to put pressure on himself, with a slice of an ingeniously constructed cake at the center. In her third Poirot mystery, Hannah, authorized to continue the series by Agatha Christie's estate, once again nails the style and substance of her beloved predecessor, producing another treat for Christie fans."