Mrs. McGinty's Dead (1952)

“The reason I picked Mrs. McGinty’s Dead is because it’s a personal favourite of mine. Poirot is my favourite of her fictional detectives, and the setup to this one is so good. What we have is Poirot called in by his friend Superintendent Spence to look into the case of a young man called James Bentley, who is accused of murdering his housekeeper, the titular Mrs. McGinty. Bentley is condemned to be executed, but Spence is not convinced of the man’s guilt, and so Poirot is summoned to this small village to try and pick apart the mystery and the circumstances that led to Mrs. McGinty’s death. The really irresistible gimmick that I absolutely love is the early revelation that Poirot makes when he discovers that Mrs. McGinty, in the days before her death, had clipped a newspaper article in which three mysterious women are discussed. These three women were involved in three separate murder cases and their fates are a mystery. Nobody knows what has become of these women.” Read more...

The Best Locked-Room or Puzzle Mysteries

Tom Mead, Thriller and Crime Writer