Closed Casket: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery

World-renowned children's author Lady Athelinda Playford has an unpleasant surprise for her children and invites Hercule Poirot and Insp. Edward Catchpool to circumvent any foul play. Lady Playford loves a spectacle but plays a more dangerous game when she announces at dinner that she has disinherited her family and left her fortune to her sickly secretary Joseph Scotcher. Despite the presence of Poirot and Catchpool, a desperate and violent murder takes place during the night. Everyone has a motive, but delving deeper into the victim's past only raises more questions, none more significant than why would Lady Playford give all of her wealth to a man with only weeks to live? Hannah follows up The Monogram Murders with the second installment in her Poirot series. While the author is true to the Belgium detective's character and his obsession with "the psychology" and "little grey cells," some aspects of the plot are slightly predictable for a well-versed Agatha Christie reader.