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Make Mine Murder: Appointment with Death / Peril at End House / Sad Cypress
Appointment with Death
Among the towering red cliffs of Petra, like some monstrous swollen Buddha, sat the corpse of Mrs Boynton. A tiny puncture mark on her wrist was the only sign of the fatal injection that had killed her.
With only 24 hours available to solve the mystery, Hercule Poirot recalled a chance remark he’d overheard back in Jerusalem: ‘You see, don’t you, that she’s got to be killed?’ Mrs Boynton was, indeed, the most detestable woman he’d ever met.
Peril at End House
Hercule Poirot is vacationing on the Cornish coast when he meets Nick Buckley. Nick is the young and reckless mistress of End House, an imposing structure perched on the rocky cliffs of St. Loo.
Poirot quickly takes a particular interest in the young woman. Recently, she has narrowly escaped a series of life-threatening accidents. Something tells the Belgian sleuth that these so-called accidents are more than just mere coincidences or a spate of bad luck. Something like a bullet! It seems all too clear to him that someone is trying to do away with poor Nick, but who? And, what is the motive? In his quest for answers, Poirot must delve into the dark history of End House. The deeper he gets into his investigation, the more certain he is that the killer will soon strike again. And, this time, Nick may not escape with her life.
Sad Cypress
An elderly stroke victim dies without having arranged a will…
Beautiful young Elinor Carlisle stood serenely in the dock, accused of the murder of Mary Gerrard, her rival in love. The evidence was damning: only Elinor had the motive, the opportunity and the means to administer the fatal poison.
Yet, inside the hostile courtroom, only one man still presumed Elinor was innocent until proven guilty: Hercule Poirot was all that stood between Elinor and the gallows…
Among the towering red cliffs of Petra, like some monstrous swollen Buddha, sat the corpse of Mrs Boynton. A tiny puncture mark on her wrist was the only sign of the fatal injection that had killed her.
With only 24 hours available to solve the mystery, Hercule Poirot recalled a chance remark he’d overheard back in Jerusalem: ‘You see, don’t you, that she’s got to be killed?’ Mrs Boynton was, indeed, the most detestable woman he’d ever met.
Peril at End House
Hercule Poirot is vacationing on the Cornish coast when he meets Nick Buckley. Nick is the young and reckless mistress of End House, an imposing structure perched on the rocky cliffs of St. Loo.
Poirot quickly takes a particular interest in the young woman. Recently, she has narrowly escaped a series of life-threatening accidents. Something tells the Belgian sleuth that these so-called accidents are more than just mere coincidences or a spate of bad luck. Something like a bullet! It seems all too clear to him that someone is trying to do away with poor Nick, but who? And, what is the motive? In his quest for answers, Poirot must delve into the dark history of End House. The deeper he gets into his investigation, the more certain he is that the killer will soon strike again. And, this time, Nick may not escape with her life.
Sad Cypress
An elderly stroke victim dies without having arranged a will…
Beautiful young Elinor Carlisle stood serenely in the dock, accused of the murder of Mary Gerrard, her rival in love. The evidence was damning: only Elinor had the motive, the opportunity and the means to administer the fatal poison.
Yet, inside the hostile courtroom, only one man still presumed Elinor was innocent until proven guilty: Hercule Poirot was all that stood between Elinor and the gallows…
473 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1962
2 people are currently reading
63 people want to read
About the author
Agatha Christie
5,812 books75.2k followersAgatha Christie also wrote romance novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, and was occasionally published under the name Agatha Christie Mallowan.
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End of London since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.
This best-selling author of all time wrote 66 crime novels and story collections, fourteen plays, and six novels under a pseudonym in romance. Her books sold more than a billion copies in the English language and a billion in translation. According to Index Translationum, people translated her works into 103 languages at least, the most for an individual author. Of the most enduring figures in crime literature, she created Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. She atuhored The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in the history of modern theater.
Associated Names:
Agata Christie
Agata Kristi
Агата Кристи (Russian)
Агата Крісті (Ukrainian)
Αγκάθα Κρίστι (Greek)
アガサ クリスティ (Japanese)
阿嘉莎·克莉絲蒂 (Chinese)
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End of London since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.
This best-selling author of all time wrote 66 crime novels and story collections, fourteen plays, and six novels under a pseudonym in romance. Her books sold more than a billion copies in the English language and a billion in translation. According to Index Translationum, people translated her works into 103 languages at least, the most for an individual author. Of the most enduring figures in crime literature, she created Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. She atuhored The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in the history of modern theater.
Associated Names:
Agata Christie
Agata Kristi
Агата Кристи (Russian)
Агата Крісті (Ukrainian)
Αγκάθα Κρίστι (Greek)
アガサ クリスティ (Japanese)
阿嘉莎·克莉絲蒂 (Chinese)
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 20, 2022
Review title: Poirot cracks three cases
This book club edition combines three Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot mysteries. Other than the detective the stories aren't thematically related. In each case, Poirot is the world-renowned detective and past resolved cases are referenced so these aren't among his first stories. Interestingly one story references discussions among British nobility about a suitable husband for the young princess Elizabeth!
As always Christie orchestrates the plot and characters so that there are multiple suspects with conflicting motives and potential opportunities to commit the crime, and Poirot asks the unexpected questions that throw off the criminal and the reader from the eventual solution. The Christie style is so casual and easy reading that she lulls the reader into reading the surface quickly, so that I was usually as slow to arrive at the solution as the suspects themselves, although I suspect that even were I to read with deep intention and a notebook (as Poirot sometimes does) Christie is smart enough to keep key facts and connections in her pocket to reveal the mystery on her own terms and timing.
Appointment with Death places a domineering elderly invalid mother with her compliantly-captive children in tow on a tour of Israel. When the lady dies, all her children, their tour guides, and fellow tourists all come under suspicion. In Peril at End House a young orphan has inherited End House but when murder takes place during a party the list of suspects includes several of her close friends and even a pair of unknown suspects that Poirot identifies as J and K. Sad Cypress concludes the set with an aging aunt's death leading to the break up of her niece's engagement, the revelation of a long-concealed secret, and Poirot brought into the case to gather evidence to prove the innocence of the arrested suspect on trial. In all of the cases, as in Christie's writing in general, the focus is on characters and dialogue, not action. Sad Cypress extends that approach so that the story is told almost entirely in dialogue, including rapid fire interrogation exchanges during the trial, so while the story takes more pages it reads faster than the other two stories.
No surprises here. If you have read and liked Agatha Christie before, you will like these mysteries.
This book club edition combines three Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot mysteries. Other than the detective the stories aren't thematically related. In each case, Poirot is the world-renowned detective and past resolved cases are referenced so these aren't among his first stories. Interestingly one story references discussions among British nobility about a suitable husband for the young princess Elizabeth!
As always Christie orchestrates the plot and characters so that there are multiple suspects with conflicting motives and potential opportunities to commit the crime, and Poirot asks the unexpected questions that throw off the criminal and the reader from the eventual solution. The Christie style is so casual and easy reading that she lulls the reader into reading the surface quickly, so that I was usually as slow to arrive at the solution as the suspects themselves, although I suspect that even were I to read with deep intention and a notebook (as Poirot sometimes does) Christie is smart enough to keep key facts and connections in her pocket to reveal the mystery on her own terms and timing.
Appointment with Death places a domineering elderly invalid mother with her compliantly-captive children in tow on a tour of Israel. When the lady dies, all her children, their tour guides, and fellow tourists all come under suspicion. In Peril at End House a young orphan has inherited End House but when murder takes place during a party the list of suspects includes several of her close friends and even a pair of unknown suspects that Poirot identifies as J and K. Sad Cypress concludes the set with an aging aunt's death leading to the break up of her niece's engagement, the revelation of a long-concealed secret, and Poirot brought into the case to gather evidence to prove the innocence of the arrested suspect on trial. In all of the cases, as in Christie's writing in general, the focus is on characters and dialogue, not action. Sad Cypress extends that approach so that the story is told almost entirely in dialogue, including rapid fire interrogation exchanges during the trial, so while the story takes more pages it reads faster than the other two stories.
No surprises here. If you have read and liked Agatha Christie before, you will like these mysteries.
February 19, 2019
I quite enjoyed the three stories in this book. I had fun trying to figure out who was the guilty person in each of the murders. It does kind of make me read the book slower and flip to and fro pages trying to be read and look for clues tho. I enjoy the way Christie writes her dialogue too. The third story I nearly guessed the ending entirely correctly! Although if I were really clever and paying attention to clues, i would have been lead astray to a different character first. Anywhooom, I would read a book by her again.
September 13, 2025
Three impossible situations which Poirot untangles using his “little gray cells” until he figures out who commuted the murder and WHY... Using his faithful friend Hastings to point him in the direction which will NOT lead to the solution is just one of Poirot’s secrets. Plus his keen powers of observation, which provide myriad clues to follow to their conclusion. Great fun for Christie lovers!
August 30, 2012
Three corking stories. I was surprised, as I had selected this volume from the library shelf believing it to be one meaty novel; but perhaps given Christie's tortuous style it's as well this is an omnibus. A 500-page Christie novel would likely break records for plot twists.
The best part of Christie's writing is undoubtedly her use of italics, as in this delicious sentence from Sad Cypress, the third entry in the volume:
Is there any part of that sentence that isn't divine? No, there is not.
The best part of Christie's writing is undoubtedly her use of italics, as in this delicious sentence from Sad Cypress, the third entry in the volume:
In our state of civilization it is a foregone conclusion that the person to whom the plate is offered will take the sandwich that is nearest to them.
Is there any part of that sentence that isn't divine? No, there is not.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews