Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and o - Agatha Christie

This book of Christmas fare may be described as "The Chef's Selection." I

am the Chef!

There are two main courses: The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and

The Mystery of the Spanish Chest; a selection of Entrées: Greenshaw's

Folly, The Dream, and The Under Dog; and a Sorbet: Four-and-Twenty

Blackbirds.

The Mystery of the Spanish Chest may be described as a Hercule Poirot

Special. It is a case in which he considers he was at his best! Miss Marple,

in her turn, has always been pleased with her perspicuity in Greenshaw's

Folly.

The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding is an indulgence of my own, since

it recalls to me, very pleasurably, the Christmases of my youth.

After my father's death, my mother and I always spent Christmas with my

brother-in-law's family in the north of England - and what superb

Christmases they were for a child to remember! Abney Hall had everything!

The garden boasted a waterfall, a stream, and a tunnel under the drive! The

Christmas fare was of gargantuan proportions. I was a skinny child,

appearing delicate, but actually of robust health and perpetually hungry!