Tag: Agatha Christie Challenge

A Year Of Agatha Christie – A Reading Challenge Round-Up

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Before my decision to sign up for the 2021 Read Christie Challenge at agathachristie.com I hadn’t read a book by the world’s most famous crime writer for some 16 years. I’d first discovered one of her works when I was around 12 and browsing in the little bookshop which had opened in our school at lunchtimes and provided a valid excuse for being out of the cold playgrounds. The first book I bought was “And Then There Were None”, admittedly, it did have a different title then in the UK and a lurid cover which made me approach the book as if I was going to be reading horror and would need the lights on at night. The out and out chills did not happen but I loved the structure of this book, the one by one killings,a new experience for someone fresh from children’s literature. I think this was probably the first book I’d read which was intended for adults.

I read quite a few more from the Christie canon moving into my early teenage years but then only the odd book until 2002 when I thought I’d start again with “The Mysterious Affair At Styles”, I read another two of her books over the next couple of years but then nothing until tempted by the Challenge. TV wise, I’ve never watched an episode of “Poirot”, nor Joan Hickson’s celebrated “Miss Marple” although I’ve watched the Margaret Rutherford films a number of times and the more recent ITV adaptations with Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie. I have never watched any of the big Hollywood adaptations of her movies but have watched the odd one-off BBC productions. I wouldn’t class myself as a Christie fan, as I’m all over the place with what I have read and seen and what I haven’t. I thought the 12 books which would be recommended to me by the organisers of the Challenge might change that. It has certainly pushed the author up to number two in my most read authors list.

Although 2021 is not quite finished I think I can say that none of the Christie titles are going to end up in my Top 10 books of the year but as she has formed a significant part of my reading experience this year I thought I’d give these titles their own moment of glory as I look back at what I have read and which impressed me the most.

My Top 5 Christie Titles from the Read Christie Challenge

5. A Pocket Full Of Rye (1953) (May’s Choice)

I said of this Miss Marple novel; “I thought I’d picked up on the clues and sorted out the ending but I hadn’t, so there is the pleasure of Miss Christie outfoxing me again.” 

4. The Sittaford Mystery (1931) (December’s Choice)

This snowy stand-alone was a perfect way to finish the Challenge. I said; “There’s a lightness and a great energy to it which made it a quick, perfect over-Christmas read”. 

3. Murder Is Easy (1939) (April’s Choice)

Another 30’s novel which is actually classed as a Superintendant Battle novel, although he does not contribute a great deal. I said; “I like the feel of this book, the location and characterisation gives it stronger atmosphere and the folklore slant offers us suggestions of darker forces at play and even of satanic orgies in the woods.”

2. The Murder At The Vicarage (1936) (July’s Choice)

I seem to be showing a clear preference for 1930’s Christie and I said; “It is set in St. Mary Mead and was the first novel to feature Miss Marple, not in a central role but she certainly knows what’s going on and I’m not surprised that Christie saw her potential as a recurring character.”

1. Death In The Clouds (1935) (October’s Choice)

There were 6 1930’s recommended titles in this year’s Challenge and I’ve placed four of them in my Top 4 positions. Even more surprisingly, for me, this was a Poirot novel. I’d come to the Challenge thinking I wouldn’t like the Poirot books much. However, of this I said; “The set-up is simple and yet the work seems more substantial and involving.”

And the Christie which really didn’t do it for me…. Well, I didn’t actively dislike any of the books but perhaps the one which most missed the mark was a collection of short stories which shows that Christie did not always have the magic touch in the 1930’s. Of Parker Pyne Investigates (1936) I said; “I felt the stories tended to blend one into another probably because Christie struggled to establish much in the way of characters within the short fiction format.”  

So, that’s the year-long Reading Challenge wound up. I mentioned in my last blog post that I am probably going to give it a miss for 2022 but the team at agathachristie.com have already got some good categories lined up so it is certainly worth signing up for. You never know, by mid- January I may be missing my monthly fix of Christie and might find myself signing up for another year.

Agatha Christie Reading Challenge – Month 12- The Sittaford Mystery (1931)

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The year-long Agatha Christie Reading Challenge for 2021 rounds up with a book set in bad weather.  The recommended title was this 1931 stand-alone and for me, it was one of the stronger of the Christie titles I’d read this year.

There’s a lightness and a great energy to it which made it a quick, perfect over-Christmas read.  The bad weather is snow which has cut off the Devon hamlet of Sittaford.  The Willets, South African mother and daughter and recent tenants of the big house have invited some of the other inhabitants for a get-together and during a playful séance a murder is predicted.  When that comes true and a relative of the deceased is arrested, Emily Trefusis arrives in the area to prove the accused’s innocence.  She joins forces with an ambitious young reporter who has arrived to present a resident with a competition prize to find out who the real murderer was.

The séance adds a bit of the supernatural to the proceedings which I actually like in Christie (it was also evident in another of her 1930’s novels “Murder Is Easy” which I also really enjoyed this year).  The amateur sleuths are investigating alongside Inspector Narracott who is not convinced the police have the right person in prison.  There’s well-paced to and fro-ing, as the weather improves, from Sittaford, the nearby village of Exhampton and the city of Exeter.

Emily proves a lively, spirited and very convincing character, enlisting the support of other residents to help crack the case.  You can sense Christie’s approval of her which is not always evident in her characterisation.  This book was a strong finish for the Reading Challenge.

I think for the time being a whole year of Christie is enough (these 12 books have moved the author up to number 2 in my most read list) but the Reading Challenge is gearing itself up again for 2022.  You can find out more at agathachristie.com.  For my next post I am intending to look back at my year of Christie.  I’m thrilled that I have completed the challenge (especially as I am probably going to fall slightly short on my Good Reads Challenge to read 70 books in 2021).

The Sittaford Mystery was published in 1931 by Harper Collins.  I read a paperback edition part of the 1930s Omnibus which also includes “Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?” “And Then There Were None” and the aforementioned “Murder Is Easy”.

Agatha Christie Reading Challenge – Month 11 – Crooked House (1949)

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The challenge this month was to read a title set after World War 2 with the recommendation from agathachristie.com being this standalone which in the Foreword the author claims as being one of her favourites which she planned for years.

I’m quite surprised by this because it feels to me fairly standard Christie, maybe a stronger literary feeling than some of her works yet lacking a little in tension.  Her narrator Charles is effective in that he is able to observe situations both from those involved in the crime committed and those involved in the solving of it as his father is Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard.

When his girlfriend’s wealthy grandfather Aristide Leonides is believed to be murdered Charles decamps down to Swinley Dean and the Crooked House of the title to see what he can find out.  Sophia’s family have not met him before but they conveniently embrace him and soon trust him with confidences rather than seeing him as the outsider with police associations which he actually is.  This gives him a good position in the middle of the situation.  It’s obvious that Christie is using nursery rhymes as a device, here the “There Was A Crooked Man”, as she does in a number of her books but I do not really see how it fits in despite it being quoted in full in the third chapter.  I would have thought that if she was going to use this she would have made more of it than she has (as she did in “A Pocket Full Of Rye” (1953)).

The family are all suspects giving this crime a very domestic feel.  Sophia’s mother, Magda, steals scenes with her dramatics and her brother and sister Eustace and Josephine are distinctly odd (the younger generation damaged by the uncertainties of the war years?).  Grandfather married a woman a fraction of his age not long before his death so it is no stretch of the imagination to see who the family thinks bumped him off.

It is enjoyable throughout but I wouldn’t consider it amongst Christie’s best works and of the 11 read for the challenge I would put it around mid-way.  Next month the theme to finish off this year long reading challenge is a book set in bad weather.

Crooked House was published in 1949.  I read the Harper Collins e-book edition.

Agatha Christie Reading Challenge – Month 10 – Death In The Clouds (1935)

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This month’s theme at agathachristie.com was to read a book set on a form of transport.  The recommended title was held until the start of the month and I just assumed it would be her most famous luxury train-set novel but no, they opted for her 12th Poirot written some 15 years after the Belgian detective was first introduced.

I’ve not been the greatest Poirot fan up to now, but having completed this and reflected, it is not only the best Poirot novel I have read but my favourite Christie I’ve read for the Challenge.  The set-up is simple and yet the work seems more substantial and involving.  It’s a classic locked-room mystery in many ways only this locked room is an air-liner, Promethus, making a crossing from Paris to Croydon.  Poirot is one of the passengers but air-sickness makes him less observant and he doesn’t notice one of his fellow travellers being bumped off.  With a weapon found by the side of his seat he becomes a suspect and has to clear his name as well as satisfying his hunger for crime-solving.

There’s the usual mish-mash of characters- a Countess, French archaeologists, a doctor, a dentist, a businessman and a hairdresser who paid for her flight from a winning Irish Sweepstake ticket.  The plot moves on from the on-board incident, to the inquest and the French and British police’s handling of the crime both aided by Poirot. 

The writing feels more vibrant, there’s humour and, admittedly, the odd cringe-worthy moment where Christie’s characters seem inappropriate for 2021 but all in all this seems the sort of book that would have enhanced Christie’s reputation as the leading crime writer back in the day.  Next month (month 11 already!) the challenge is to read a book set after World War II, so there will be a bit of a chronological leap from this pre-war novel.

Death In The Clouds was originally published in 1935.  I read a Harper Collins hardback edition.

Agatha Christie Reading Challenge- Month 9- Cat Among The Pigeons (1959)

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This month’s challenge from agathachristie.com was to read a book set in a school with this 1959 Poirot novel the recommended choice.  This was Christie’s 32nd novel to feature the Belgian detective although he does not make an appearance until (according to the e-book I was reading) 63% through and his role here is largely to recap all that has happened and solve everything that had so foxed the police during a showdown in a room full of suspects, so just what we would expect from Poirot really and little more.

This is perhaps the most melodramatic of the Christie books I have read to date.  Largely set at Meadowbank, a prestigious girls school where missing diamonds are anticipated and murders occur.  The portrayal of school life seems very superficial, the teaching staff are not strongly developed and the girls all rather Blyton-ish.  It’s hard to get the sense of what Christie herself felt about the world she created, she doesn’t always seem to be on the side of women here and those not British are often dismissed.  Because of these underlying attitudes this later novel has dated less well than many earlier ones.  It comes across as slightly St Trinian’s without the spark of the Alastair Sim and George Cole characters.

There is a prelude in the nation of Ramat on the cusp of a revolution where diamonds are hastily smuggled out of the country.  Various agencies are aware of this and are keeping an eye on Meadowbank as a result but one individual knows the exact location of the diamonds.

Without giving any plot away at least one of the loose ends Poirot ties up is fairly ludicrous which adds to the melodrama of the proceedings.  There’s often a sense of a classy read to Christie’s novels but his feels a little, dare I say it, trashy.  That in itself does give it its own charm.  I’d put this at number 4 of the books I’ve read for the Challenge, slipping in between “The Hollow” and “Nemesis”.  Incidentally, I’ve been keeping records of every book I have read since 1994 (well actually years before that but earlier records got lost in a move) and reading this book pushes Agatha Christie into the Top 3 of my most read authors jointly with Charles Dickens with only Peter Ackroyd and Christopher Fowler ahead of her and not once have I given her a five star rating.  Perhaps next month’s choice will change that.

Cat Among The Pigeons was first published in 1959.  I read a Harper Collins e-book edition from Borrowbox, which is part of my local library membership.

Agatha Christie Reading Challenge – Month 8 – Midsummer Mysteries (2021)

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The theme for this month’s challenge was a story set at the seaside and the recommended title at agathachristie.com was this recently published collection of 12 stories and 1 autobiographical extract.  It’s an unsurprising companion piece to “Midwinter Murders” which appeared at the end of last year.  I think maybe the fireside and a winter evening feels more appropriate for Christie.  I wasn’t exactly thrilled to purchase this book but certainly wasn’t giving up on the Challenge at this point and I can see why the official website is promoting this collection.

Discounting the introductory fragment here called “Summer In The Pyrenees” which came from the 1977 “An Autobiography” most of these stories herald from the 1920s with just one first published in 1933.  I was disappointed that they did not feel unified by the theme- summer is strong in a couple of the tales but otherwise the selection seems somewhat random.  Two I’ve also read this year in the challenge as they were taken from “Parker Pyne Investigates”.  I think they do make more of an impression, however, in this collection.

Poirot gets the lion’s share of stories with four and the strongest is the longest which closes the collection, “The Incredible Theft” which adds a touch of political intrigue to the country house tale.  Two Marple stories come from “The Thirteen Problems” which I assume follows the format of mysteries being told by different individuals in a group with Marple providing the solution.  She doesn’t really exist as a character here.  That said, the summer flavour of “The Blood Stained Pavement” was strong and this would end up in my Top 3 from this collection.

I’ve not read the five Tommy and Tuppence novels and I don’t think “The Adventure Of The Sinister Stranger” would spur me on to do so.  Out of context from its appearance in “The Mysterious Mr Quin”, “Harlequin’s Lane” is just odd and I found it hard to like. 

My favourite and one that best fits with the theme is the stand-alone “The Rajah’s Emerald” in which the crime is backstage leaving us with a highly likeable character study of James Bond (no, not that one, Christie is using the name long before Ian Fleming) attempting to impress his girlfriend on the beach, but unable to compete with her wealthier, more entertaining friends.

This is definitely a mixed bag of tales and I can’t help feeling that most would work better in their original collections.  I’m not sure that if this was my introduction to Agatha Christie (and theoretically a new publication would lure new readers in) whether I would have a strong urge to read on.  I think, because of the stronger variety, I’d put it just ahead of Month 2’s “Parker Pyne Investigates” as my 7th favourite from the Challenge.  Next month I’m to read a novel featuring a school.  I think I will be back in Poirot territory.

Midsummer Mysteries was published by Harper Collins on 22nd July   2021.

Agatha Christie Reading Challenge – Month 7 – The Murder At The Vicarage (1930)

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This is more like it!  This has the sparkle I was expecting from Agatha Christie which I haven’t always found in some of the other books I’ve read during this Challenge.  This month the book needed to feature a vicar and here we have one in a first-person narrative.  It is set in St. Mary Mead and was the first novel to feature Miss Marple, not in a central role but she certainly knows what’s going on and I’m not surprised that Christie saw her potential as a recurring character.

Clement, the vicar lives with his much younger wife Griselda and his sixteen year old nephew Dennis at The Vicarage.  The Protheroes lives up at the Old Hall.  In the opening lunch scene the vicar announces any would-be murderer of Colonel Protheroe would be doing the world a great service and before long the Colonel turns up dead in the vicar’s study.  It’s investigated by the prickly Inspector Slack who has no time for how things are done in small villages and the more genial Chief Constable Colonel Melchett.  Two people own up to the murder early on but their confessions do not fit into the timeline.  The villagers, especially the group of elderly ladies who don’t miss a trick are keen to unravel the truth behind the murder.

There’s a good range of suspects to consider from an adulterous couple, the future heiress, a handsome artist, a mysterious newcomer and a vengeful poacher and luckily Miss Marple is on hand to sort and analyse as in Christie’s words; “There is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands.”

This has been my favourite of the Christie titles I have read for the seven months of the Challenge.  Next month I need to seek out a story set at the seaside.

Murder At The Vicarage was first published in 1930.  I read a Harper Collins e-book edition.

Agatha Christie Challenge – Month 6 – Nemesis (1971)

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It’s half-way through the challenge set by agathachristie.com and I’m still going strong.  This month the choice had to involve gardens and this late-period Miss Marple was the official suggestion.  By 1971 Agatha Christie was a publishing phenomenon and had been putting out her crime stories for over 50 years.  I really enjoyed having Miss Marple as the central character here, rather than off in the side-lines (as she was in last month’s choice “A Pocket Full Of Rye”).  By this time the mature amateur sleuth had been cracking cases for 41 years and as a character, Christie, who by this time was herself 81, allows Miss Marple to feel her age, living a much more sedentary life at St. Mary Mead (her doctor seems to have banned her from gardening) is in need of more care and is less mobile (although she soon leaves the village and is off on location for this book).  There are quite a lot of references made to advancing age for both Marple and other characters here.

There is actually a weird sense of time going on.  Whilst perusing the obituaries Marple notes the passing of a character she has previously encountered in “A Caribbean Mystery” a 1964 novel which I have never read.  Plot-wise, though this is set only around a year and a half later and the death notice leads to her involvement with other characters but its conveyed as if it is years ago and these overlapping characters have only hazy memories of one another.  I’m sure if I met Miss Marple on holiday 18 months ago and became embroiled in a murder situation with her I would have remembered clearly.

It is a strange plot structure here which can feel a little lumbering but it does allow my favourite of Christie’s recurring characters to have prominence.  The dead man offers Miss Marple a reward for some sleuthing but she has to embark on this without knowing what is going on or why.  It requires her attendance on a organised tour of English houses and gardens (there’s the Challenge theme for you) during which she begins to piece together what is asked of her.

There’s a lot of chat and not much action and a lot of reiterating what Marple already knows when she encounters characters who might edge her quest forward.  Christie normally catches me out but I had this one solved quite early on.  A little more tension might have been good for the reader if not for the well-being of Christie’s aging characters.

This was the last Miss Marple novel Agatha Christie wrote (although “Sleeping Murder” was the last one published) and it is a bit of a muted, if age-appropriate farewell.  At the time it was generally considered not be amongst her finest.  On my list of those I have read so far for the challenge I think I would slot it in at 4th below “The Hollow” and just above “Lord Edgware Dies”.  For August’s challenge my job is to read a book involving a vicar, a challenge which I could have anticipated would make an appearance before long.

Nemesis was first published in 1971. It is available in the UK as a Harper Collins paperback. Further details/book group info etc on the Reading Challenge can be found at www.agathachristie.com

Agatha Christie Challenge – Month 5- A Pocket Full Of Rye (1953)

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This month’s challenge book needed to involve tea and the featured choice, published in 1953 was the most recent Christie I have read so far and the first to feature Miss Marple.  I am beginning to show a preference for her later work, they seem more subtle with greater depth in terms of character and psychology behind the crime, although of course, I am basing this on just a handful of titles.

This one is slipping in at number 2 in my favourite Christie titles.  It didn’t sparkle as much as last month’s “Murder Is Easy” (1939) but positions itself just ahead of “The Hollow” (1946).  The tea makes an early appearance as it is the last thing consumed by Rex Fortescue, the head of Consolidated Investments Trust, a family business, which he has controlled by just being on the right side of the law.  Inspector Neele is on the case and much of the work is done before Miss Marple makes a very delayed appearance and stays at the Fortescue’s home on the flimsiest of pretexts.  Further crimes occur which appear to link to the “Sing A Song Of Sixpence” nursery rhyme or is someone just using this as a device to mask the real motive?

It’s very much a backstage role for Miss Marple here and some may say her presence wasn’t necessary but I did rather enjoy her contribution to balance out the not terribly likeable set of suspects.  I thought I’d picked up on the clues and sorted out the ending but I hadn’t, so there is the pleasure of Miss Christie outfoxing me again.  All in all a very satisfactory read which will have me looking forward to next month without blowing me away on this occasion.  June’s challenge is to pick a book which features a garden.

A Pocket Of Rye was published in 1953.  It is available as a Harper Collins paperback.  I read it from an omnibus edition of Miss Marple novels (number 2) which also includes A Caribbean Mystery, They Do It With Mirrors and The Mirror Crack’d From Side To Side. Further details about the Christie Reading Challenge can be found at http://www.agathachristie.com

Agatha Christie Challenge Month 4- Murder Is Easy (1939)

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This month’s challenge was to read a book set before World War II and this 1939 publication just fits into the timescale.  This  was the title recommended by the good folk at agathachristie.com and I did think it was a stand-alone, but no, after I read it I discovered it is the 4th in the series featuring Superintendent Battle,  a sequence which had begun with 1925’s “The Secret Of Chimneys”.  Here Battle makes a blink and you miss him appearance and adds nothing to the plot so my thinking it a stand-alone is very excusable.

Main character Luke Fitzwilliam is a retired police officer returning to England from his post in the Mayang Straits when he meets an elderly woman on the train on her way to Scotland Yard to report a murderer at large in her village of Wychwood-Under-Ashe.  Fitzwilliam, at a loose end goes to investigate on the pretence of writing a book about folklore and local customs.

This has been my favourite of the Challenge books so far and there’s quite a notch up in the entertainment factor from my second favourite, The Hollow.  Most of the murders have already taken place leaving Fitzwilliam to work out whodunnit.  I like the feel of this book, the location and characterisation gives it stronger atmosphere and the folklore slant offers us suggestions of darker forces at play and even of satanic orgies in the woods.  Fitzwilliam stays at the home of poor-village-boy-made good now newspaper magnate Lord Whitfield and becomes fascinated by his fiancée.  There’s a mixture of doctors, librarians, publicans, servant girls in the cast list and even a cat called Wonky Pooh!

The novel feels freer and less formulaic than some of her Poirot titles.  I was thoroughly entertained and didn’t guess whodunnit.  I would have been unlikely to have encountered this book without the Christie Challenge and would have missed out on this enthralling cosy crime caper with good edges of darkness.  Next month it’s a story featuring tea, luckily there’s a suggested title.

Murder Is Easy was first published in 1939.  I read a Harper Collins paperback edition. Further details about the Agatha Christie Challenge and Facebook/Instagram book groups on this title can be found at http://www.agathachristie.com.