Hercule Poirot has a case at a home in the English countryside involving a missing ruby, and he also gets to experience an English Christmas.

This was an extremely enjoyable short story. I liked the setting, the Christmas season, the characters... I liked the part when the teenagers tried to trick Poirot, but as usual, he is one step ahead of them.

Another entertaining mystery by Agatha Christie! ( )

A rare ruby has been stolen and to this end Poirot is persuaded to spend a traditional Christmas at Kings Lacey, the home of Colonel and Mrs Lacey.
A enjoyable mystery, better for being a longer length and so more of a story. ( )

While working my way through Agatha Christie's works in publication order, this particular short story has me facing a conundrum. This tale was first published as Christmas Adventure in Sketch Magazine on December 12, 1923. It was later re-published in an expanded short novella form as The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding. The later version expands the plot, changes character names, etc. I wanted to read the original version of the story before delving into the longer 1960's version....but it seems the original story has only been re-published in one UK anthology, While the Light Lasts and Other Stories. In the US this was published as The Harlequin Tea Set and Other stories. BUT....the Harlequin Tea Set collection did not include Christmas Adventure. So each time I search for the UK story collection, the search pulls up Harlequin Tea Set instead.....

ARGH!!!

So I turned to my local library....found an anthology "The Early Cases of Hercule Poirot" which includes all the early Poirot stories. But.....instead of Christmas Adventure (the version published first in 1923)...it includes The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding. Foiled again! So I turned to Amazon...they used to sell an ebook version of Christmas Adventure published in 2014. It now says "unavailable.'' Tried to find the ebook on a UK or Australian site.....all say unavailable.

So, it looks like I am going to have to read the revised, longer edition of this story until I can get my hands on a copy of While The Light Lasts and Other Stories. And so far, I have only been able to find copies on Ebay.

Really??? LOL I even tried Internet Archive/Open Library. No luck there either.

So....I have put While the Light Lasts and Other Stories at the top of my "must buy a used copy of this ASAP" list...and I'm having pudding.....sigh. I will backtrack at a later date and read the original story.

Now to actually review the story...

Poirot isn't too keen on spending Christmas at an English country house. But after the the promise of modern conveniences (such as radiators and central heating), good food, and a mystery to solve, he travels to Kings Lacey for an old fashioned English holiday......and a stolen ruby in the plum pudding.

I enjoyed this holiday tale immensely (despite its not being the original story). Poirot did some sleuthing, enjoyed the festivities, and in the end, he decided it was quite the enjoyable holiday. Cute story! Interesting mystery! :)

This re-vamped story is also known as "The Theft of the Royal Ruby.'' It was under this name that the television series Agatha Christie's Poirot adapted the story for television (Season 3, Episode 8). While the story is still delightful, I think the adaptation changed some of the best parts of the story and some characters were expanded that may have been better left as side notes. Still an enjoyable episode, but just not quite the same as the original story.

I'm still very curious about the shorter, original version of this story.... I will read and review it as soon as I have chased down a copy. :)

On to the next story -- The Lemesurier Inheiritance!
( )

Well this was short, but sweet. I loved the set-up of Poirot going to an old country house in order to retrieve something for a prince. While there though not only does he get to the bottom of the mystery of a stolen item, but is also able to help sway a young woman to her future. No Hastings, which is a disappointment, but everything else works. This would definitely be a great story for the Festive Tasks that we do every year.

"The Adventures of the Christmas Pudding" follows Poirot being asked by a higher up in the British government, to help a foreign prince retrieve a priceless ruby that got stolen from him by a special friend of his. Poirot is implored to go to Kings Lacey and stay with the Laceys during Christmas. Poirot who loathes cold wants to stay in his modern little flat with the heating and plumbing. He finally agrees to go and while there manages to figure out who is behind the stolen ruby and direct a young woman away from a bad romance.

So Poirot was actually agreeable to me in this one. Usually he drives me a bit insane, but he is really there to listen to certain characters and give advice. My favorite part of this story was him talking to Mrs. Lacey who is concerned that her granddaughter Sarah has become involved with a man named Desmond Lee-Wortley. Mrs. Lacey and Poirot comment on how much has changed with young girls of the day (this book takes place in the 1960s I assume since it was published in 1960) and how "far" they seem to go with unreliable young men.

Mrs. Lacey is quite smart and reminds me a bit of past Christie characters (an older relative knowing what's what and the best way to get a young woman over an infatuation with an unremarkable man) and definitely knows what what.

I liked Sarah a lot and she seemed to be realizing that maybe things with her beau Desmond are not all they are cracked up to be.

We also have secondary characters like the Lacey's grandson, the aging butler, the cook, and other friends as well.

So the writing was really good and maybe I laughed at Christie talking about how young women nowadays dress terribly and don't wash or brush their hair. Was this a thing in England at the time? Yikes. I always laugh a bit that Poirot via Christie laments the changes in the young and how things were much better back in the day.


The flow really works and the story moves along nicely. We have Poirot arriving before Christmas day, Christmas, and then the day after.

The setting of this country house that is much too large (though modernized here and there) definitely to not be the norm for the time that this book is taking place. Lots of Christie books it seems get into the small fortune that many had to pay to upkeep family homes and how they have to be let and or sold off (see The Body in the Library and The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side to see how the Bantrys eventually sold off their home).

The mystery gets nicely resolved and it's up to the reader to imagine what is next for some of the characters in the story. But based on past Christie books it's pretty obvious what Sarah is going to end up doing next. Or who she will end up with. ( )