The Best of Poirot is an omnibus edition of Agatha Christie works published by Collins in 1980. It features five Hercule Poirot novels: Murder on the Orient Express, Cards on the Table, Hercule Poirot's Christmas, Five Little Pigs and The Labours of Hercules. The book is available in hardcover only. Another omnibus with the same title was published by Book Club Associates by arrangement with Collins in 1990 (Worldcat: 861911685 ). This had the same content and may be considered a further edition of the same book.
Besides the omnibus of five novels, the volume also carries, as an introduction by Robert Barnard, author of A Talent to Deceive: An Appreciation of Agatha Christie.
In 1991, Diamond Books published a four volume set of Agatha Christie omnibus books. The first volume had the exact same first four books of The Best of Poirot (Labours of Hercules is omitted). This volume also had the same introduction by Robert Barnard.
The omnibus The Best of Poirot is not to be confused with The Best of Poirot, a five book box set issued by HarperCollins in 2018. This box set comprised a different combination of five novels: Murder on the Orient Express, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The A.B.C. Murders, Five Little Pigs, Evil Under the Sun.
Blurb on front flap[]
When Agatha Christie died in 1976 she had held the uncontested title of Gueen of Crime for over fifty years, and had written over eighty books, with a staggering world-wide sale of around 400 million copies. She was also the creator of one of the most famous detectives of all time, Hercule Poirot. He is the hero of these books, published together for the first time in this volume.
MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS: the Orient Express stands snowbound in the Balkans while on board the passengershave setled down for the night, By morning one of them has been brutally murdered and Hercule Poirot confronts twelve unlikely suspects....
CARDS ON THE TABLE - four people are playing bridge; in the course of the game their host who been sitting out, is murdered, and it can only be by one of the players while dummy. Any one of the four might have committed the crime, for each is known to have committed one murder and is quite capable of committing another.
HERCULE POIROT'S CHRISTMAS: a classic locked-room murder. At a Christmas gathering of the Lee family Simeon, the aged head of the family is murdered. Each of the family and each guest has a motive and opportunity. Hercule Poirot's little grey cells are never more tantalised.
FIVE LITTLE PIGS - this linle pig went 1o market, this litle pig stayed at home... the jingle constantly ran through Poiror's mind. Caroline Crale was convicted of murdering her husband but there were five other suspects and Caroline's daughter asks Poirot to re-open the sixteen-year-old case.
THE LABOURS OF HERCULES: nobody would say that Hercule Poirot bore the slightest physical resemblance to his mythological namesake. But with his usual disarming vanity the little Belgian detective decides before retiring to undertake iwelve more cases, each chosen for its resemblance to one of Hercules' twelve labours. Each story is a finely-polished example of the unrivalled craftsmanship of Agatha Christie.
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