The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories includes nine stories; seven miscellaneous, one Hercule Poirot and one Harley Quin. My favourites were the miscellaneous story, The Actress, followed by the miscellaneous stories; The Lonely God and Manx Gold, and the Poirot story, The Mystery of the Spanish Chest. My least favourites were the miscellaneous stories; While the Light Lasts and The House of Dreams. Overall story collection is 2.5 stars, rounded up to 3. Individual story ratings and reviews below.

MISC: THE EDGE: **
MISC: THE ACTRESS: *****
MISC: WHILE THE LIGHT LASTS: *
MISC: THE HOUSE OF DREAMS: *
MISC: THE LONELY GOD: ****
MISC: MANX GOLD: ****
MISC: WITHIN A WALL: **
POIROT: THE MYSTERY OF THE SPANISH CHEST: ****
HARLEY QUIN: THE HARLEQUIN TEA SET: **

MISC: THE EDGE: **

A woman is led from her path as a good Christian when she discovers her crush's wife is cheating on him. Eh. It was alright. 2 stars.

MISC: THE ACTRESS: *****

An actress finds herself being blackmailed and comes up with a plan to solve the problem. This was incredible. I wish it was longer. Olga is a total genius. 5 stars.

MISC: WHILE THE LIGHT LASTS: *

A woman remembers her first husband. Why decide now to tell her he's alive? What was the point? This was weird. 1 star.

MISC: THE HOUSE OF DREAMS: *

A man keeps dreaming of a white house on a hill. I didn't like this. It was all supernatural and spooky without any real plot. 1 star.

MISC: THE LONELY GOD: ****

Two lonely people find a lonely god. I liked this one. It was strange and eerie and fairy tale like. 4 stars.

MISC: MANX GOLD: ****

When their uncle dies two young cousins are sent on a treasure hunt with two other relations they haven't met. I enjoyed this one. I love treasure hunts. And I always love when people are being outwitted and getting one over each other. I loved that the uncle decides to be fair by holding the treasure hunt and then backtracks by cheating at his own game and giving Fenalla and Juan an early clue. 4 stars.

MISC: WITHIN A WALL: **

A painter reflects on his muse. This was okay. I thought it was going to go somewhere interesting but it kind of just faded out. 2 stars.

POIROT: THE MYSTERY OF THE SPANISH CHEST: ****

A woman's potential lover is arrested for the murder of her husband and Poirot is asked to prove him innocent. This is an expanded version of The Baghdad Chest and I have to say I liked it a whole lot more. This version was more streamlined and had better explanations for the murder. The earlier version lacked this cohesion. Plus I love Othello so the Iago references were great. 4 stars.

HARLEY QUIN: THE HARLEQUIN TEA SET: **

Mr Satterthwaite visits an old friend and his family. I didn't really like this one. It didn't really make much sense either. The stepmother mixed the kids up? Is that where it was going? And then tried to kill the one who would inherit (Timothy)? Except he wouldn't because everyone thinks Roland is Timothy and Timothy Roland. Honestly this just made my brain hurt. 2 stars. ( )

Didn't finish. Early stories.

I had never read most of these stories before. There are a couple of good mysteries (plus The Mystery of the Spanish Chest, which is well-known and collected elsewhere), but most are Westmacott-style stories—excessively florid and romantic and not for me. ( )

4/8/22

I made it through three of these before deciding they are Not For Me. Not nearly as interesting as charming as I usually find her mysteries, and also so many of the characters were SUPER unlikeable. The audiobook wasn't bad, but it also wasn't good enough to get me to finish it.