The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah

Hercule Poirot, a famous detective from London, meets a distressed lady who tells him she will die tonight, but once it’s over justice will have been done. He tries to revolt against her by running away, but he is unable to do so due to his old age. Upon returning to his guest house, he meets with Edward Catchpool, another detective who is easily discomforted and informs him of 3 murders that were committed in Bloxham Hotel. Poirot suspects these murders are possibly linked to his run-in with Jennie. He decides to visit the Bloxham Hotel in hopes of gathering new information about Jennie but ends up having to solve this new case. Upon investigating the corpses, he discovers cufflinks in each of the victim's mouths, all embroidered with the initials “PIJ.” They all had their hands face down and were laid out neatly by the murderer. They discover the three names for each of these victims, Richard Negus, Ida Gransbury, and Harriet Sippel. The victims were murdered on three different floors, all adjacent to each other. The window was left open on Richard Negus's crime scene, but it was odd since it was on the second floor where there was a large drop and no fire escape. Poirot and Catchpool investigate Negus's room because it seems he was the last to be murdered. At the fireplace in Negus's room, they discover a key behind a loose brick, which they have no use for at the moment. After investigating all of the rooms, they find parts of a tea set scattered across each of the rooms. They decided to investigate all employees to discover information on who delivered the tea set. They discover that the employee that delivered the tea to them knew them, and knew that they were from a place called Great Holling. Poirot, who is “too old” to travel, decided he would send Catchpool to Great Holling to gather information, from then on, Catchpool would go to Great Holling and gather information including descriptions of the victims that were murdered, whose initials were engraved on the cufflinks, and also found out that they were hated. Catchpool comes back to London and discusses with Poirot his findings, and using the information they discover even more information. This eventually led to them finding the murderer.

The story was really confusing, and sometimes I couldn’t wrap my head around it. It came from the perspective of Catchpool after the second chapter, and I really dislike how they did this. It made it feel less mysterious and was just really annoying because of Catchpool’s comments he made, like, twice a page. The mystery of the murder is not very complicated, and was sort of boring to read through it and watch them solve parts of this mystery.

In my opinion, the book was an OK read but I wouldn’t say its better than good. If you were to get a Hercule Poirot book, then I would recommend something actually written by Agatha Christe, since this book is written using her characters. As I’ve said before, the mystery was boring and would have been better if it was written by Agatha Christe. Thanks for listening!