Poirot's Early Cases

This collection illustrates very well what is meant by the term "a cozy mystery." The stories in this book are like little puzzles, and they are a pleasure to read. Poirot is strong here, exercising his "little grey cells." I found it interesting that there are a couple of stories where Captain Hastings is not present. In the last story, we meet Poirot's secretary, Miss Lemon, who is passionate about filing systems but not so much about human interaction. The collection featured a story I had read before, the one about the Veiled Lady. I can't recall where I read it, likely in some other anthology, but it was nice rereading it in this collection. The neat thing about the book, for me, is that the stories were short. This makes for a nice sampler, and if you really like Poirot, it may encourage you to seek out the longer novels featuring the Belgian (not French, get it right) detective. In addition, for me, I find the time period where the tales take place, right after World War I and into the 20s, to be a fascinating time period, and Christie captures it well. Even something as simple as traveling by train, which we can't imagine as much today (certainly not in the U.S.) seems very romantic in Christie's work. Overall, this was a nice leisurely read for me.