Ruining the Mystery

Apparently it's not a good idea to watch a mystery movie before reading the story. I have watched most of the Poirot series on PBS and it happens that almost every one of these fourteen story in Agatha Christie's Poirot Investigates has been made into a television film. Therefore, when I started reading these stories, I would get through about the first page or two and think "oh yeah, this is the one where it's the wife" or "geez, the one on the oceanliner".

Though I normally like Christie's short stories for their paradoxically complex mysteries, this was just a painful experience! Next time I will pay more attention to which stories are in the book I choose.

Still thirsting for some mystery,
K


Buy Poirot Investigates on Amazon or find it at your local library.

"The intense interest aroused in the public by what was known at the time as 'The Styles Case' has now somewhat subsided."

Agatha Christie's first Hercule Poirot mystery was The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written in 1920. Not only are we introduced to Poirot but also to his friend and sometimes companion, Hastings, who acts as narrator of this story, and Inspector Japp, his Scotland Yard contact. This is a locked-room and poison murder mystery with a simple motive of inheritance. However, there is a large cast of characters each with their own secrets and missing alibis. I enjoyed the characters and didn't quite discover the solution although I saw past some of the dead ends that came up during the course of the story.

In reading this book, I was somewhat surprised to find how young Hastings actually was. In this first story he is only thirty. I always thought he was just slightly younger than Poirot himself based on how he is portrayed on television. Anyway, the best thing about Poirot stories is that you can read them in any order so go ahead and pick one up if you haven't before. Even though Agatha herself found Poirot insufferable, you will hopefully enjoy his wit and intelligence.

Avoiding all greedy hangers-on,
K


Buy The Mysterious Affair at Styles on Amazon or find it at your local library.

Poirot, In Short Form

One of the things that is missing from most of the pages of Poirot novels is Poirot himself. The story unfolds without him until the point where he is invited in or happens upon the crime and then he works his effortless magic. The best thing about Poirot short stories is that there isn't time for that so he is present in the whole story. The book I read recently, Murder in the Mews, is a collection of four short stories. These have all been made into tv episodes by the BBC. In this book we have murder for inheritance, the theft of state secrets, a locked room murder and a love triangle murder.

The best story of the bunch is Triangle at Rhodes where a love triangle forms leaving jealous spouses and someone with murder on his or her mind. It has a nice little twist at the end that you can anticipate if you really pay attention and know where Poirot's sympathies lie. This book is a nice little short read and is great for a story before bedtime.

Using the little grey cells,
K


Buy Murder in the Mews on Amazon or find it at your local library.

An Agatha Christie Primer

I previously sang the general praises of Agatha Christie but since I am going to do some reviews, I wanted to give you a little more insight into her characters so that, if you are new to Agatha, you can follow or decide which stories really interest you.

First, there are two main series. Hercule Poirot is a retired Belgian policeman turned detective who exercises his "little grey cells" in solving mysteries that he is hired to investigate. The picture in most people's minds of Poirot is the portrayal by David Suchet in the BBC's Poirot series. He is a fastidious man who is obsessed with his "moustaches". According to Wikipedia, Poirot is in 33 novels and 51 short stories. He is an iconic detective who always gets his man but doesn't always turn him in -- sometimes he lets the criminal take an easier way out.

Christie's other main series is the Miss Marple series. Marple is featured in a dozen novels and a handful of short stories. There is also a Marple television series on BBC. Jane Marple is a spinster who has a knack for ending up "in the neighborhood" when a murder has occurred. Her only qualification for solving these murders is her experience in life. She has an ability to recognize certain personality types in people (based on people she knows from her small hamlet of St. Mary Mead) and to use that information to deduce motives and actions. She is a cunning but soft-spoken woman who helps the police with her unique talents though she is hardly ever called upon officially to do so.

The final pair that star in their own series of novels are Tommy and Tuppence. There are five stories starring this pair. They are young twenty-somethings at the start of the series, much younger than Poirot and Marple, but the series ends when they are in their seventies apparently. I've only read the first two books in this series so far. These two have connections to the British government but in an unofficial capacity for the most part, although they do profit handsomely from it.

The final two recurring characters are Mr. Quin and Mr. Parker Pyne. Parker Pyne is a "problem solver", not just dealing in thefts and murders. The stories about him are amusing but don't really let you follow in the problem solving. Mr. Harley Quin is a supernatural sort of man who seems to be omniscient and he leads others to the right questions in order to find solutions.

Of course, Agatha Christie also has many, many stories that don't feature any of these sleuths. With 80 novels and 160 short stories, not to mention her numerous plays, it is surprising that she manages to keep such high quality through most of her stories. There are a few that are less detective and more supernatural that just seem a bit weak but these are definitely a small minority of her writings.

Still enjoying the mystery,
K