Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot Rediscovered Adventures on Audio!

John Curren, an archivist, is searching through the private documents of the most successful female author ever at her family home. He looks through notes and sketches until he comes across something amazing. He breaths slowly, wipes the dust from the worn brown paper cover, and reads the classic words written in HB pencil… Agatha Christie – Notes. He rifles through the pages and discovers piece of work never seen by anyone. Two stories, which were never published before now. Both of them starring her most famous detective creation, Hercule Poirot

Okay, we may have taken a bit of artistic license with the story of their discovery, but the fact they were found is all that is important. The Capture of Cerberus and The Case of the Dog's Ball not only give us new adventures with our favourite Belgian detective but also shed new light on how Christie worked as an author and how the world worked in the late 1930's. AudioGO have now released the stories on CD read by Mr Poirot himself, David Suchet.

The Capture of Cerberus was intended to be part of a collection of Poirot stories published in the book The Labours of Hercules (1947), but was eventually scrapped and rewritten into a completely different version keeping only the title. The original version is set during the years leading up to the Second World War and describes in detail the way Europeans were feeling around that time, not knowing how the world was going to react to the actions of fellow countries.

Nazis are featured along with a Hitler-like dictator, both of which are used by Christie with great depth, unlike recent fiction such as the Doctor Who episode: Who Killed Hitler?, that used them mainly for period decoration. The plot features Poirot being commissioned by his friend and former fancy, the Countess Rosifcof to investigate a matter involving the assassination of a Nazi dictator. Rosifcof believes that the man convicted was not the true killer. Poirot discovers that the dictator did not in fact get killed but the death was faked due to a change in his political views. A gripping 1940's political thriller, this story shows us a new possible style from the world's most popular murder mystery authoress.

The following story The Incident of the Dog's Ball is earlier version of Christie's 1937 novel Dumb Witness. An elderly wealthy spinster falls head first down her stairs, supposedly after tripping on her dog's toy ball. Poirot discovers the case when he receives a letter two months after it was written. Poirot and his friend Hastings travel to the spinster's house where they meet their suspects, which include a Yorkshire Terrier called Bob, and Poirot investigates the affair with his usual talent. It's a gripping listen with a sad conclusion and another death concludes the story. But as Poirot says, it was the best way out.

David Suchet's readings of these two stories is classically superb. His Poirot voice is so well crafted and developed that he sounds like a true Belgian gent. His way of mixing the Finnish and the French heritage of the character is magnificent. He gives each part it's own depth and magic from the deep, operatic voice of The Countess Rosifcof to the calm, romantic vocals of Poirot's friend and companion Captain Hastings. After playing the role for so long, (Suchet filmed his first Poirot TV film in 1988) Suchet is not only well acquainted with the Poirot character but with the whole style of an Agatha Christie story; the way she describes each scene in rich detail or her way of splitting the drama of each chapter into smaller bite size chunks. By understanding the text so well, Suchet becomes less of an actor playing a part but a talented reader performing a bedtime story.

The Capture of Cerberus and The Incident of the Dog's Ball is now avalaible from AudioGO priced around £13.99

Poirot picture © LWT/ITV 1989