Agatha Christie - Where to start?

Several of her books are also now in the public domain: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/agatha-christie

Start with And Then There Were None.

That one's great until you get to the solution. The solution is absolutely ridiculous.

If you mean it's psychologically unconvincing, I'd agree. But the fun of Christie's works is in the how, not the why. "But cards don't WORK that way!" is not an answer to the pleasure of a magic trick.

I do mean that, and I would generally agree with your other point, but the solution of And Then There Were None stretches credulity to the point of breaking, at least for me. It requires way to many things that were beyond the culprit's control to go exactly the way s/he planned in order to work. It's a perfect example of what Raymond Chandler would have described as "having God sit in your lap" (and may actually have been exactly what he was thinking of when he described that concept). I found the "why" convincing as far as it went (which is to say, I believed the culprit was being honest when s/he explained his/her motive), but the "why" made the culprit clearly insane, and insanity is a poor reason to do stuff in a mystery story, at least, again, in my opinion (and is often put forth as a motive be people other than the detectives in Christie mysteries, and almost never is the motive).

Now, to be clear, I don't really mind any of that; I still think it's a great book, and the solutions aren't really what makes Christie's books great, anyway.

Edited by Robbery on May 25th 2021 at 4:11:12 AM

My favorites:

(ATTWN of course)

• (P) Third Girl
• (M) A Murder is Announced
• (P) The Clocks
• (B) The Secret of Chimneys (public domain!)
• (B) Sparkling Cyanide
• (P) Murder in Mesopotamia
• (P) Cat Among the Pigeons
• (M) At Bertram's Hotel

Also The Mousetrap. Actually a few of my favorite actors are going to be in a production in Japan next month. The one who's playing the culprit is perfectly cast and I'm sad I won't get to see them...

(B is Superintendent Battle. Someone else mentioned Towards Zero, I'm not a huge fan of that one but that also involves him.)

For short story collections, Murder in the Mews is good, and Witness for the Prosecution is a bit different, a little bit more psychological-thriller-ish than her usual stuff (it's still Christie so I do mean a little bit.)

I'm pretty sure everything she wrote is on Audible, and probably most ebook stores. A lot of the audiobooks are narrated by the actors from the TV series, mostly Hugh Fraser.

I've never read The Secret of Chimneys, but I have read it's sequel, The Seven Dials, for which I have a great deal of affection. It's an English Thriller, with international plots and masked secret societies, rather than a straight mystery, and it's a lot of fun. I really like Endless Night, too, which is also a bit of a departure for Christie.

Edited by Robbery on Dec 25th 2021 at 6:14:44 AM

Chimneys *might* be my favorite Christie book, because it has my... *cough*... favorite plot twist (any Genre Savvy reader can probably guess that part of it just from the premise, it goes with the territory... despite the efforts of the character in question to get as far away from said territory as possible.)

Since it's public domain, I sort of want to write my own thing based on it, or like, fold a version of it into my larger fantasy series. I just really like the characters.

If we're on the topic of stretching credulity to the point of breaking...

Two that are well-regarded do this for me. I feel like I do just personally disagree with some elements of Towards Zero (I can't with the idea of a person just being Super Evil And Can Never Change, and I think the whole "I survived for a reason" thing was cheesy), but I don't think I'm just being biased when I say it has a few too many coincidences.

Also, I tend to like the ones where the solution is that the person, all along, wasn't who they said they were — I'm thinking of one famous Marple, and one late Poirot that I really love — but Taken at the Flood... I think it's the "Shaggy Dog" Story aspect of it, plus the aspect of, no, the family doesn't have to just live with their hopes being upset (not as bad as Ordeal by Innocence)... but it's also the fact that there's this whole convoluted web of characters and then it comes to that. Not to mention the other, ahh... questionable decision at the end.

On the positive side — The Clocks. Just ''The Clocks. I'd say more, but spoiler. Well, one thing I can say without spoiler is that it's one of those "it's a Poirot but he doesn't involve himself much with the other characters" one where that element of it works well.

Edited by lavendermintrose on Dec 26th 2021 at 7:23:00 PM

The first Christie I read was The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, although my favourites are The Mysterious Affair At Syles and The Murder In The Links. I find that a lot of her later books tries a bit too hard to be a character drama—perhaps to emphasize Poirot as a "psychological detective"—rather than a genuine mystery, and I don't think she does that particularly well.

What I enjoy most about Christie's writing style is the vivid descriptions of the story's settings (from which you can pick out clues and reconstruct the crime), but when it comes to characterization, a lot of the details come across as Show, Don't Tell—which is fine when they're just used to profile the suspects, but it doesn't make a very engaging dynamic when it's meant to create conflict and drama between the cast members.

Several of Christie's books were published under completely different titles in America and Britain—it can be frustrating to waste your time tracking down a title, only to find it's a wholly different title on your side of the pond!. This site lists all the varying UK/US Christie titles.

I know what you mean. You'll be looking through lists of her works and find a title that isn't familiar, only to find out it's a book you've already read under an alternate title. It's the same with a couple of PG Wodehouse books (some of his novels have textual differences between the English and American editions, too).

Then There Were None had two other titles. It's original English title is extremely politically incorrect, and in the 60s Pocket Books gave it the title Ten Little Indians, which is less politically incorrect, but still not great.

Not that I'm aware of.

Edited by Robbery on Jan 1st 2022 at 9:17:56 AM

Speaking of revisions, are there any other differences between the US and UK versions besides the title? I remember that Christie revised the murderer's motive for Three Acts Tragedy (for the better, it would seem, although I haven't read the revised version yet).