Boek
Werken van Hercules, De
| Auteur | Agatha Christie |
| Eerste Uitgave | 1947 |
| Uitgave | 1974 |
| Uitgeverij | A.W. Sijthoff |
| Vorm | kortverhalen |
| Taal | Nederlands |
| Bladzijden | 223 bladzijden |
| Gelezen | 2003-01-19 |
| Score | 7/10 |
Inhoud
Hercule Poirot heeft besloten zich uit zijn werk terug te trekken. Nog maar twaalf zaken zal hij op zich nemen, en die zal hij uitkiezen om hun overeenkomsten met de twaalf werken van Hercules, zijn mythologische naamgenoot. Poirot brengt zijn plan ten uitvoering en verricht zijn twaalf werken, die volledig verschillend van aard zijn: van het opsporen van verdwenen schoothondjes tot de ontmaskering van een moordenaar.
Bespreking
Hercule Poirot goes Greek
As always, Hercule Poirot is on the verge of retirement. But before he settles down to cultivate vegetable marrows once and for all, he decides to take on twelve last cases, in honour of his famous mythological predecessor Hercules. The twelve cases are each quite different: from searching for a lost pet to hunting down a ferocious murderer.
Although this is widely considered to be the best of Christie's short story-collections, I do have some doubts about this statement. Personally I am not a big fan of the short stories featuring Hercule Poirot, where Jane Marple has had more success in this format. An obvious weakness of this particular collection is that in quite a few stories the conclusion is so utterly obvious, that you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery. What makes this collection worth reading though is the skilfully incorporated links to Greek mythology: sometimes quite burlesque, sometimes very subtle.
The stories listed in this collection are "The Apples of the Hesperides", "The Arcadian Deer", "The Augean Stables", "The Capture of Cerberus", "The Cretan Bull", "The Erymanthian Boar", "The Flock of Geryon", "The Gridle of Hyppolita", "The Horses of Diomedes", "The Lernean Hydra", "The Nemean Lion" and "The Stymphalean Birds".