Book Review

Book review: Nice plot, shame about the characters in Hercule Poirot’s latest outing

Sophie Hannah has overpopulated the crumbling Norfolk mansion where her new novel is set, to the detriment of the story

Writer Sophie Hannah: Silent Night is Hannah’s fifth Poirot novel, written in co-operation with the Christie estate

Silent Night by Sophie Hannah, €24.64

If those of us who have read everything Agatha Christie ever wrote know one thing, it’s that the drawing room, train carriage or vicarage where the identity of the murderer is revealed will usually be pretty packed.

Those assembled to hear Hercule Poirot or Jane Marple present their solution to a mystery might include enigmatic Hungarian diplomats (Murder on the Orient Express), buffoon-like MPs (Hercule Poirot’s Christmas), or disaffected American GIs (They Do It With Mirrors).