What have we here? It’s apparently a new collection of short stories by Agatha Christie (who died 47 years ago). Something is amiss!

Midsummer Mysteries, subtitled Tales from the Queen of Mystery, is indeed marketed as a new collection of Agatha Christie stories, copyright 2023. But let us dig deeper—appropriately so, as Christie was not only a mystery writer but also something of an archaeologist. That copyright date of 2023 is actually for the collection itself, not for the original stories, which all have copyright dates in the 1920s and ’30s.

OK, now that we’ve cleared all that up, what about the stories themselves? Unsurprisingly, the quality is mixed. As you would expect, the Poirot and Marple ones tend to be the best of the bunch. But then there’s Harley Quin, and Tommy and Tuppence, and Parker Pyne, all of which can be forgiven and forgotten. And the less said about the autobiography excerpt, the better. Just stick to Poirot and Marple, and you’ll do fine—the classic British mystery era at its best.

Categories: Books