Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly is a never before published lost classic. This book was found after 60 years and has been released in digital format by Witness Impulse, an imprint of HarperCollins. I received a copy of this book from the publisher and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
Hercule gets an urgent call from his old friend, Mrs. Oliver. She says she needs him and insist he come at once, but fails to explain why. Upon arrival, Poirot finds his friend is hosting murder. She also has a keen intuition that something is not right. As it turns out her intuition was spot on. Hercule is on the case of the Greenshore Folly.
The history of this book is as interesting as the book itself almost. It was published in 1956. It was written however, in 1954 as a contribution to a church to raise funds for stained glass windows. However, there was a problem with the length of the book, not a short story but not a full length novel, so it was scrapped and Agatha Christie instead submitted a Miss Marple mystery for the fund raiser. Although some of the original passages remain from Dead Man's Folly, this book takes a different direction. This novella has remained unpublished for 60 years and is the original version before Christie expanded it.
The story itself is so short I didn't have time to do a great deal of thinking about whodunit. The mystery was still well rounded and I loved the mild flirtation with Mrs. Oliver and Poirot. The murderer is not easy to guess and as usual Poirot has an uncanny ability to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
Overall this is an interesting addition for any fan of Agatha Christie and I am so glad it was found an is now available in e book format. This one get an A.
