Welcome to All About Agatha Christie, in which we read all 66 of her mystery novels and attempt to rank them.

This week, however, we are not reading a novel.

We are reading a short story, The Mystery of Hunter's Lodge.

First published in the Sketch magazine on May 16,

1923. This is yet another Poirot short story and let's dive right in.

This is a Poirot in which Poirot is actually not active in the

investigation because our dear Erkeol is in bed with a terrible case of influenza.

This entire story is based on the idea that Hastings has gone out into the field

and is reporting back to a bad-ridden paro.

And I would just like to briefly point out

that having influenza as of May 16th,

1923 is no laughing matter.

This would have just been about five years

after the worldwide blue pandemic

that killed so many people.

So we'll talk about the differences between the

adaptation of this story and the story itself but I think that's a big one in that

there's there are very little hijinks having to do with Poiro being sick. It really is just a mechanism for him to be totally inactive and for Hastings to have to take the reins and for various things to result from that but this is like he's

seriously sick and he's out and he's that and that's it and that's how it's treated in the

story right and so the very first thing that we find out other than the fact that Hastings has just recovered

from influenza and that Poiroiro is quite ill is that a very frantic gentleman has come

for Poiro's assistance because his dear beloved uncle he has just

...