Agatha Christie - Where to start?

I've been thinking about reading Agatha Christie's books for a long time, but I haven't gotten anywhere and I have no idea which book I should start reading. Any recommendations?

"If I touch my enemy, it's over, so I don't need to put effort in destroying them."

Ten little Indians

Death on the Nile

Murder on the Orient Express

The murder of Roger Ackroyd

Murder at the vicarage

... these should keep you busy for a while.

@Cakman: Whatever.

edited 14th Jul '11 2:47:19 PM by StrangeDwarf

"Why don't you write books people can read?"-Nora Joyce, to her husband James

Ten little indians is more commonly called "And Then There Were None" nowadays.

Read my stories!

Ugh. I've been looking for "And Then There Were None" everywhere but I can never find it...

I actually started with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. That one... -___-

"If I touch my enemy, it's over, so I don't need to put effort in destroying them."

I have it. In my room. Right now.

Granted, I got it at a book sale, so it was prolly a REALLY old book.

edited 3rd Jun '11 1:22:52 PM by MrAHR

Read my stories!

Yeah. "And Then There Were None" has gone through quite a history of renaming. Originally, its title was "Ten Little Niggers." (I'm not kidding.), but was renamed because the title was seen as offensive. Naturally, they went with the much more harmless "Ten Little Indians," since those people don't have feelings, while the blacks suddenly seemed to have gained them. Naturally, when it was discovered that the Red Man did indeed bleed blood and feel pain, they switched it to "And Then There Were None."

I haven't read the book yet. I want to though. My solution?

I plan to play the video game once I have a chance to find it.

edited 5th Jun '11 5:57:00 AM by Cakman

My only goal in life is to ensure that Mousa dies of a stress-induced heart attack by the age of 23. READ THIS

I always liked Miss Marple, so I would actually recommend picking up a collection of the Miss Marple stories. That way you can try a few small tastes and see what you think.

edited 5th Jun '11 4:55:57 PM by TTurtle

I'd say start with Murder On the Orient Express for Poirot, Murder at the Vicarage, for Miss Marple, and N or M? for Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. Or find a copy of the collection The Regatta Mystery (and other stories) and get a taste of Poirot, Marple and her fourth regular character, Parker Pyne. (It doesn't have any Tommy and Tuppence)

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

I really like the Satterthwaite stories, too. Pretty sure that most of those are short stories, tho, so they'd probably be in a collection. They tend to be more artsy themed, tho, so might not be your thing.

edited 6th Jun '11 8:41:16 AM by Maridee

ophelia, you're breaking my heart

I don't think I've read any of the Sattherwaites. I'll have to remedy that.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

I read all the Tommy & Tuppence books but didn't really like any of them. The Poirot ones were my favorites; Miss Marple struck me as a bit too talky-talky.

Definitely recommend And Then There Were None, but if you can find it, I also highly suggest you try Towards Zero - great plot twists there.

Oh, Towards Zero is excellent!

I read Poirot when I'm in the mood for a nice tightly-plotted mostly Fair Play Mystery. Marple is for when I just want to meander through a ramble that happens to also have a mystery. I think that the Tommy and Tuppence ones have aged the worst of all her main detective-characters, but I'm not sure why.

EDIT, Dammit, I know we have a page on Fair Play mysteries. I've read it. I've edited it. Where is it?

EDIT again: Oh, Fair-Play Whodunnit.

edited 13th Jun '11 10:12:14 AM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Whoa, that's a great page! Fair-Play Whodunnit's are my favorite kinds and I'm often searching for writers similar to Christie (I've pretty much exhausted her ouvre). Off to the library website!

Not all of Poirot's stories are entirely fair play, though - I remember "Death in the Clouds" as including a piece of information about the killer's past life he said he was on a "farm", Poirot discovered it was a snake farm that no reasonable reader could have deduced until it was revealed in The Summation.

A surprising number of Christie's mysteries don't meet all the requirements to be a perfectly Fair-Play Whodunnit. I'd say that most of the Poirot's don't, at least to a Fair Play Purist, since there's almost always something that he sees that isn't completely described to the reader, or that's described in a way that is accurate but completely misleading (The monogrammed handkerchief, for example, in Murder on the Orient Express.) and Poirot seems to run into a surprisingly high number of illegitimate or unknown family members (who are introduced as strangers but bear a striking resemblance to dear old dad or to their brother) popping out of the woodwork.

The other thing that gets in the way of completely Fair Play is that times change, and what once was common knowledge isn't anymore; I recall reading an Ellery Queen that included the "Challenge to the Reader" (and if that was included, the story did meet all the rules of a Fair Play at the time it was written) that hinged on knowing male hat etiquette of the time it was written — 1929.

edited 16th Jun '11 8:24:00 AM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

And Then There Were None is a must read if you're getting into Agatha Christie. Most bookstores carry that title. Some other good starting books are:

Poirot: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The ABC Murders, Death on the Nile, Cards on the Table. Miss Marple: The Tuesday Night Club Murders, The Moving Finger, A Murder is Announced Tommy and Tuppence: The Secret Adversary, Partners in Crime Other: Towards Zero, The Mousetrap and Other Plays, The Pale Horse.

That was the one I started with, and it seemed a good enough starting point. Otherwise I'd say ABC Murders for Poirot.

Satterthwaite's basically a critic put into the position of detective, which is interesting because it gets into the nature of beauty and genius, passion and art in a way you can't quite do with Poirot or Marple. They're both too hardheaded. :P

ophelia, you're breaking my heart

(OP, btw) Can anyone tell me what's the difference between the Poirot and the Marple mysteries? You know, aside from the obvious main character thing. Or which one is the better one to jump into first.

edited 3rd Jul '11 2:12:25 AM by LiberatedLiberater

MAL || vndb || Blog

The personality of the detective changes the tone of the story. Poirot is intelligent and logical. Marple is intuitive and given to assumptions and leaps of logic based on her experience of what "people are like".

Which one is a better starting point is a really personal taste question. I personally don't like the Marple stories as well as I like the Poirots — I find them disjointed and rambling.

edited 3rd Jul '11 6:45:53 AM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Well, aside from the main character thing, Marple tends to be more individual-based and focuses on homely things. She doesn't get out of England very often. A lot of times the narrative will follow the people around her instead of her, mainly because at heart Marple is a twittery old lady with a habit of rambling and observing people. Poirot is more of a humorous character. His arrogance can be annoying at times, but he's usually justified. Christie got annoyed with him quite a few times herself. He's more likely to lead the action than Marple is. He's also more of an international character, having adventures from the Mediterranean to India to Little Surrey. Marple tends to stick around her home of England.

In both, however, Christie likes to use your assumptions against you. Which is kinda the fun of it - figuring out what are facts and what you just want to be facts. Don't believe anything anyone says unless it's been verified by two people, and even then be careful.

ophelia, you're breaking my heart

I like Poirot better because I like his interaction with Hastings. They're silly and fun together.

I just started with The ABC Murders. As I understand it, with Christie you can pick up any of her books and jump right in (I picked that one entirely because Goodwill had it for one dollar)

visit my blog!

I think Tommy and Tuppence have aged a little worse than some of the other Christies because a fair amount of those stories involve knowing other mystery stories that were popular when Agatha Christie was young, and how she's doing a Take That to them.

Some of her most effective books don't feature Poirot, Marple, or any of her other minor protagonists. Crooked House and Endless Night are two of the best she ever wrote, and are much, much darker & more psychological than her usual fare. I wouldn't recommend you read either of them first, but they absolutely belong in the first half-dozen.

Some of her later books spoil the endings of earlier ones though (ex. The Pale Horse, Cards on the Table). But yeah, other than that you can jump in pretty much anywhere.