In general, I tend not to enjoy short stories, but I liked the way this book drew out different facets of Hercule Poirot’s character as he confronts 14 unique mysteries at the beginning of his career. We learn that he suffers from ‘mal de mer’ and is also not very happy on the train, which explains a lot about his tendency to allow Hastings to do his legwork while he comfortably applies his little grey cells in his rooms. “Most details are insignificant; one or two are vital,” he tells Hastings when describing his method. “The senses mislead. One must seek the truth within—not without” (p.160). And again later, he explains “I am looking for something I do *not* see.... A mistake—even a little mistake—on the part of the murderer” (p.160). Christie does not overplay his love of the finer things yet, nor do we learn much about his background before he comes to London as a refugee from his home country of Belgium. As with any collection of short stories, some of these are throwaways, but many include interesting insights into 1920s Europe: the dearth of affordable housing options in “The Adventure of the Cheap Flat”; readers’ fascination with the exotic in “The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb” and “The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman”; and a little about interwar politics in “The Kidnapped Prime Minister.” The fun of reading Christie is in her wide-ranging interests, which inform her books with investigative techniques and clues—the Almanach de Gotha, conduct in an opium den, and of course obscure poisons—unforeseen by the average reader and this collection is replete with those.