The Labors of Hercules, Agatha Christie
The Labors of Hercules, Agatha Christie
2 Rating(s)
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The Labors of Hercules
A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition

Author: Agatha Christie

Narrator: Hugh Fraser

Unabridged: 8 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 07/03/2012


Synopsis

Like The Labors of Hercules, the twelve cases Poirot must solve in this captivating collection of short crime fiction stories are dangerous, demanding, and positively ingenious.In appearance Hercule Poirot hardly resembled an ancient Greek hero. Yet—reasoned the detective—like Hercules he had been responsible for ridding society of some of its most unpleasant monsters.So, in the period leading up to his retirement, Poirot makes up his mind to accept just twelve more cases: his self-imposed “Labors.” Each would go down in the annals of crime as a heroic feat of deduction.

About Agatha Christie

What a daunting task to write about the most famous mystery writer, Agatha Christie. She was born in 1890 in England, where she was home schooled by her American father. It was an unusual way to be educated for the times. Her father did not want her to begin learning to read until age eight, but out of boredom, she taught herself to read by age five.

In his research, Curran found a plethora of information about Agatha. He outlines many of those interesting facts. Since there are so many, just a few will be mentioned here. Agatha could have been an excellent performer as a pianist, but she was much too shy to perform. She once had three plays running simultaneously in London. She traveled around the world in 1922, which would have been quite a feat back then. Agatha loved dogs. She has a rose named after her. She never did drink alcohol nor smoked. Her last public appearance was in 1974, at the premier of the movie, Murder on the Orient Express. Agatha Christie's name has appeared every day for 53 years in every newspaper with a West End London theatre listing. Her favorite flower was Lily of the Valley. The information about this illustrious author goes on and on. It is a great asset to readers that author John Curran wrote the definitive book about an iconic author. One other interesting fact was that Agatha met Archie Christie in 1912, married on Christmas Eve 1914, spending their honeymoon at The Grand Hotel in Torquay, but Archie returned to France on Dec 27th due to the War. Agatha and Archie fid not really experience married life until he was posted at the London War Office. Agatha has been quoted as saying only then did she feel that her married life truly began.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Anne on March 17, 2025

A good bunch of loosely interconnected short stories. Poirot grows a wild hair and decides he wants to retire after completing his own version of The Labors of Hercules. He is well aware that you'd have to squint a bit to see the correlation between his tasks and that of his namesake, but there you g......more

Goodreads review by zuza_zaksiazkowane on August 22, 2020

Niestety - najgorsze wydanie Christie jakie czytałam do tej pory. 12 opowiadań, które koncept miały naprawdę ciekawy (nawiązania do mitologii greckiej) ale na tym pozytywy się kończą. Czasami właśnie te nawiązania były tak na siłę wciskane czytelnikowi, że było to wręcz niesmaczne. Wykreowania bohat......more

Goodreads review by Jen on September 11, 2021

I generally don’t write reviews of Agatha Christie books, after all what more can I say about most of them that hasn’t already been said. But good lord, if I wasn’t attempting to read all of Poirot this year I would have flung this one out the window. This was a cute concept, and there were a few de......more

Goodreads review by Dave on May 31, 2017

Only a Poirot completist like me would finish #26, based on either (you choose) a forced or clever premise: Poirot is (supposedly) ready to retire. In appearance he hardly resembles Hercules, but he thinks his mind is equal to Hercules’s body and physical exploits. They both rid the world of monster......more

Goodreads review by Mansuriah on July 18, 2018

THE LABOURS OF HERCULES is a mixture of mystery, adventure, and an unexpected literary conceit. Agatha Christie transforms the ancient Greek mythology of the twelve labours of Hercules into a modern mythology and of the twelve labours of Hercules (Poirot). And the result is quite charming. The book c......more