Poirot Investigates
by Agatha Christie (The Bodley Head, 1924); audiobook read by David Suchet (HarperAudio, 2012)
Poirot is well suited to the short story form—a less faceted character than Holmes but more endearing and also more inclined to solve cases from the evidence at hand. Hastings, however, narrates like Bertie Wooster and makes a poor Watson substitute.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
by Agatha Christie (John Lane, 1920); audiobook read by Hugh Fraser (Harper Collins, 2006)
An agreeable debut for both Christie and Poirot; yet for all the ingenious conception and deft foreshadowing, its mystery nevertheless comes across more as an intellectual puzzle for the author to have pieced together than as a whodunnit to engage the reader.