Agatha Christie wrote this novella in 1954 with the intention of donating the proceeds to her local church.
Having completed it, however, she decided to expand the story into a full-length novel (it became Dead Man’s Folly, which was published two years later), and donated a Miss Marple story to the church instead.
Sixty years on, the original Poirot mystery has now been published.
When the Belgian sleuth receives an urgent call from his old friend Mrs Oliver, his interest is piqued. She is hosting a murder mystery game at a country estate in Devon, but is sure something is amiss.
Sure enough, a body is soon discovered. Despite the dearth of clues and evidence, Poirot tracks down the culprit unfeasibly quickly.
The Greenshore Folly is a good premise, but there just aren’t enough pages to develop the mystery and build the suspense and it doesn’t quite work as a short story.
Book review: Hercule Poirot And The Greenshore Folly by Agatha Christie
