The Last Death of the Year

 

I have to say, I was disappointed by this one. Normally I really enjoy Hannah's Poirot mysteries, but for some reason this one just didn't hold my interest. 

Catchpool and Poirot go to the Greek island of Lamperos for New Year's Eve. They're staying at a house known as the Spitty, inhabited by a group of people who, forty years later, would be called a commune. It's a ragtag group of people who subscribe to a philosophy of forgiveness above all else. 

Their leader, Austin, proposes a game in which everyone writes down their New Year's resolution and puts it in a container. Catchpool will them read them one by one and everyone has to try to figure out which resolution belongs to which person (sounds dreadfully boring to me, but hey, it was the 1930s). 

Catchpool comes to one resolution about murdering Matthew, one of the male members of the group, and he and Poirot are horrified at the prospect. Matthew takes it in stride, laughs it off as a joke, but no one confesses to having written it. 

So of course Matthew is murdered that evening. 

I can't say too much more without giving it away, but it was just lackluster.