A delightful collection of Agatha Christie wintertime stories: one Miss Marple, two Hercule Poirots, and two Mr. Quins, which I’d never read before. There are the requisite train rides, frivolous youths planning practical jokes, country estates, and cranky Duchesses, all mixed in with the murders, mistaken identities, and purloined jewels. The plots don’t always make sense, but what I like about Christie is that even the improbable comes to seem at least possible. And I like that she occasional sprinkles in some life wisdom, even in exotic locales. “What are the years from twenty to forty?,” asks Mr. Parker Pyne. “Fettered and bound by personal and emotional relationships. That’s bound to be. That’s living. But later there’s a new stage. You can think, observe life, discover something about other people and the truth about yourself. Life becomes real—significant…. That’s when individuality has a chance” (187). Spoken like a writer who had recently been through some tribulations.