Rach's Reading Club

Title: THE KILLINGS AT KINGFISHER HILL
Series: NEW HERCULE POIROT MYSTERY, Part 4
Author: Sophie Hannah
Release: September 15 2020 (US)

Words: 270
Characters: 1666
Review: Sophie Hannah is also a relatively new favorite author, both in regard to her intense standalones (such as THE ORPHAN CHOIR, read in December 2025), and her NEW HERCULE POIROT MYSTERY Series, under official approval of The Agatha Christie Estate. THE KILLINGS AT KINGFISHER HILL is Part 4 of this Series. A more convoluted novel I have seldom read! Although not strictly speaking a "locked-room Mystery" (one of these deaths occurs in plain sight, another involves a threat of death in a crowded public location), nevertheless the story carries that exact flavor, because it is so incredibly and intensely twisted, and because practically everybody LIES. Toss in a patriarch who must take lessons from Attila the Hun, fatal illness, LIES, LIES, AND MORE LIES, betrayals, plus the "finest mind" of Monsieur Poirot, and his steady, turtlelike progressing, companion, Scotland Yard's unfailingly devoted Inspector Edward Catchpool. Stir up this cauldron of woe and you, too, will be staying up past your bedtime to finally discover "WHO did WHAT?"

In Surrey there is a gated community, there called "a country estate," and its appellation is Kingfisher Hill. On 900 acres the exclusive residences are set few and far between. Some are away-from-London second homes, some are permanent domiciles. One such is the home of the extremely wealthy Devonports, whose older son died unexpectedly a year ago December, apparently mudered. His younger brother had written Poirot to insist on his aid, as the brother's fiancee is soon to be hung for the murder. Of course, Poirot and Catchpool must stumble into multiple mysteries before they can even reach Kingfisher Hill!