Deathtraps, Dream Bombs, Snow, Flakes, Third Girl: Third Girl (1966), by Agatha Christie (Christie in the Sixties)

Note: For non-American readers of this blog, or American readers under the age of, say, forty-five or so, the post title references the theme song to the That Girl television series (starring Marlo Thomas), which premiered the same year Agatha Christie's Third Girl was published.  See video below.--TPT

"She's a third girl....It's the way girls like living now.  Better than P. G.'s or a hostel.  The main girl takes a furnished flat, and then shares out the rent.  Second girl is usually a friend.  Then they find a third by advertising, if they don't know one...."
                               --Ariadne Oliver in Third Girl (1966)

Third Girl traditionally has not been much esteemed by critics.  In his book Adventure, Mystery and Romance scholar John G. Cawelti cites Third Girl as an example of one of Christie "artistic failures," and Robert Barnard, in his generally quite favorable Christie monograph A Talent to Deceive, dismisses the novel as "one of Christie's most embarrassing attempts to haul herself abreast of the swinging sixties."  

More recently, however, Laura Thompson in her 2007 biography of Christie praises Third Girl, declaring that the sixties milieu is "utterly convincing." 

Where do I stand on this one?  When I first read Third Girl when I was about twelve or so I must admit I thought it was one of the "boring" Christies. I didn't pay much attention to publishing dates at the time, but I now realize that I thought most of the later Christies, from 1965 (At Bertram's Hotel) onward, were pretty boring.  Rereading some of them now, I am finding them of greater interest.

girls one and two

One thing that appealed to me about Third Girl is how this is a full-bore Poirot mystery, something that was an increasing rarity after the mid-fifties, when Hickory, Dickory Dock and Dead Man's Folly were published. Between 1957 and 1975, a nearly twenty-year period, only six Poirot detective novels appeared: Cat among the Pigeons (1959), The Clocks (1963), Third Girl (1966), Hallowe'en Party (1969), Elephants Can Remember (1972) and Curtain (1975).

Of these novels, the last title was actually written by Christie during the Second World War, and Poirot plays a recessive role in both Cat and Clocks. In both of those latter novels I believe he is mostly is occupied with writing a book on detective fiction, which he has finally finished in Third Girl.

When Hercule Poirot popped up in Third Girl, it was his first fully active performance since Dead Man's Folly was published a decade earlier. Contemporary reviews of the novel, Cawelti and Barnard notwithstanding, were favorable.  

the third girl

For example, while Anthony Boucher thought the plot "only moderately good Christie," he lavished praise on Poirot and his mystery writer sidekick Ariadne Oliver and the author's "acute sense of the immediate contemporary scene."

I think one can appreciate why critics were positive: it's nice to have Poirot back in a truly active capacity, even if he does rely extensively on subordinate investigations by a Mr. Goby, who appears on occasion in Poirot novels. 

The brilliant Belgian sleuth is fully in his environment, with manservant George, the ever-efficient Miss Lemon, endearingly scatty Mrs. Oliver, his magnificent vanity and moral force, his tisane, his sirop de cassis, his chocolate, his mustaches, etc.--it's a warm bath of authentic Christie nostalgia, something I most definitely missed in Sophie Hannah's ballyhooed Poirot continuation novel, The Monogram Murders.

And Christie has worked up a good "situation" for Third Girl. When the distraught young "third girl" of the title, Norma Restarick, barges into Poirot's flat, telling him she thinks she "might have committed a murder" before abruptly departing, declaring that Poirot is just "too old" to be of help to her (the generation gap rearing its head), it's a set-up that immediately entices the reader.

The plot itself employs time-tested Christie devices and deceptions in an enjoyable manner, if not quite as smoothly as in the past. Aspects of the plot, though clever, take a bit of swallowing and the resolution of two of the characters' fates felt rather forced.

While there are not actually all that many scenes devoted to swinging sixties London in Third Girl, I did not find Christie's portrayal of this milieu "ridiculous" like Robert Barnard did. To be sure, Christie does drop drug references with wild abandon: Purple Hearts, Dream Bombs, coke, snow, hash, etc.  It's raining meth, you might say. 

In fact, I thought David Baker, the modster artist character described by Christie as "a young man with lavish chestnut hair curled on his shoulders, wearing a red velvet waistcoast and a very fancy jacket" and nicknamed "the Peacock" by Mrs. Oliver, actually was the most interesting new character in the novel. Over the years he has inspired much of the cover art for Third Girl.

The basic idea of the "third girl" works beautifully, I think, Christie having alertly caught onto and cleverly employed a phenomenon of modern English life. (It's a shame the television adaptation moved the time period back to the Thirties.)  

I was fascinated with Borodene Mansions, the London block of flats where the three girls live, which Christie likens in appearance to the prison Wormwood Scrubs; and I noted the harlequin wallpaper in their flat, captured on the Pocket paperback cover illustrated above. Christie was always fascinated by the Harlequin motif.

All in all, Third Girl is a worthy addition to the Poirot canon. If the novel doesn't make it to home base, it certainly hits a double, or, dare I say...a triple?

not Borodene Mansions

Postscript: In Third Girl there's a marvelous instance of the "odd" English terms to which Christie books used to introduce me, a young American reader.  Mrs. Oliver, in one of the novel's unlikely coincidences, happens upon Norma Restarick and David Baker in a cafe called The Merry Shamrock. The two are eating beans and toast, which always sounded singularly unappealing to me as a lad.  Is it really as simple as canned baked beans on toast with Worcestershire sauce on top?  I'm afraid my reaction, if actually presented with this dish, might be rather like that of these Americans:

Americans try Beans on Toast (Caution: Humor!)

This recipe, now, looks pretty good!

British-style Beans on Toast

That Girl intro:

The Tuesday Night Bloggers

In a nod to Agatha Christie's classic book of Miss Marple short stories, The  Thirteen Problems (aka The Tuesday Club Murders in the US), in which Miss Marple herself as well as other individuals swap stories about real-life mysteries, some of us in the mystery blogging community have formed

The Tuesday Night Bloggers

a group dedicated to discussing aspects of all things Agatha.

Here are the links to some very original and interesting pieces by our club members (I have one too, on the way):

Bev Hankins, Murder on the Orient Express: Review and Audio-Visual Extravaganza
Brad Friedman, The Bloodstained Pavement, Part I: Agatha Christie and the Serial Killer
Curtis Evans, Deathtraps, Dream Bombs, Snow, Flakes, Third Girl
Helen Szamuely, The Mystery of Raymond West
Jeffrey Marks, He Must be Belgian!
Moira Redmond, An Agatha Christie List
Noah Stewart, Christie's Rarest Paperback Editions

Ray and Jimmy: The Raymond Chandler-James M. Fox Correspondence, Part 2

Sometimes I get distracted with other jobs and don't continue a blog post series in what you might call a timely fashion.  In this case, it's been nearly two years!  Back in December 2013, I started writing about the correspondence between Raymond Chandler and a much lesser-known hard-boiled (sometimes medium-boiled) writer, James M. Fox. (See my admittedly rather tepid review of his novel The Gentle Hangman.)  The correspondence sheds revealing light on attitudes toward the crime fiction craft by two mid-twentieth-century practitioners of it, one of them one of the mystery genre's most important figures.

James M. Fox

When I left off, Fox, in a letter from 3 March 1953, had just informed Chandler that he had, at Chandler's suggestion, started writing a spy novel, nearly completed, which he wanted to dedicate to the older author: The basic format is not unlike that of [Somerset Maugham's] Ashenden, although I can hardly hope even to approximate Maugham's craftsmanship and general excellence.

Chandler replied that "I should be only too flattered at the idea of having one of your books dedicated to me," adding that "I have read quite a few spy stories (I mean recent ones, written since the war) but I can't say that I have read anything that impressed me much."

Although he admired crime writer Dorothy B. Hughes "very much," he wasn't impressed with her recent espionage novel, The Davidian Report.

"It may be that there is something self-defeating in the spy story itself and that intelligence or counter-intelligence work in fiction is ether damned dull stuff  or so oversimplified that it becomes silly," he ruminated.  "The same thing could probably be said about police work, and perhaps this is why so few mysteries of any quality (when I say so few, I can't offhand think of any) are written around actual police detectives, or to be more accurate I should say police detectives who might conceivably actually be policemen."

In his response Fox noted that he was about to publish a new novel, Code Three, the first in a new series, with a police sergeant protagonist. "The publisher likes it, which means very little, of course" he noted bluntly. "It will probably sell all right because of the sex plus violence element in it, and because it contains at least a flavor of actual police work, but the word 'quality' is one I hardly expect to hear mentioned in connection with it."  [In the event critic Anthony Boucher found the material in the novel over-familiar, but declared that "it reads at such a terrific clip, with such economy and vividness, that your reservations come only after you've finished it."]

On 8 January 1954 Fox sent Chandler a copy of his completed spy novel, Dark Crusade, and three weeks later Chandler replied, bestowing considerable praise on the book, though not without some qualification:

I liked the book so much that I wish I had three more just like it to look forward to....I like the cool literate way in which you write.  I think some of your stuff will go over the heads of the lending library creeps, but that can't be helped....What the story lacks is a central drive.  I'm talking, please understand, in terms of popular support....As for comparisons your stuff makes most of the so-called spy novels seem pretty fantastic [i.e., unbelievable].  I'm not thinking of a terrible piece of rubbish like Little Red Monkey (which is practically G. A. Henty) but rather of competent writing jobs such as The Davidian Report or [Julian Symons'] The Broken Penny.  Neither sounds in the least as if the author knew anything about intelligence or C. I. work  Of course there is always a danger in knowing too much.  You forget to simplify.  I don't think you did, not for me anyhow, but I do think the book might have had a possibly better sale if the central story line had been simpler and more emotional.

Chandler's view of Stalin
was rather different from
that advanced in this
propaganda poster

Occasioned by his reading of Dark Crusade, Chandler went on to express his views of the Cold War, as well as, incidentally, the American Civil War, by my reading denouncing the United States for not sufficiently resisting the Soviet Union and avowing support for the Lost Cause:

I don't suppose the people of this country will ever let themselves realise how much harm to themselves and their future their foreign policy has done.  The principle of self-determination seems to work everywhere in other people's colonies, unless of course it is a question of placating some swine like Stalin, when you toss whole nations into the incinerator without a qualm. The only domestic problem of self-determination we have faced was in the War Between the States (in which I should most certainly have fought on the losing side). It was also almost the first demonstration of high-powered propaganda in convincing the world that the war was about slavery, which it was not. The nation, said Lincoln, cannot exist half slave and half free, but apparently we think the world can. So much for that.

Chandler sent a copy of this English edition
to his friend Fox

Chandler also noted that his new Philip Marlowe novel, The Long Goodbye, had sold close to 30, 000 copies in the UK, adding "I only wish American sales could compare. Adjusted for population that would mean a real sale here." He promised he would send Fox a copy of the book, which the next year would win the Edgar for best mystery novel.

In his reply Fox expressed dissatisfaction with Dark Crusade, explaining that he had to draw on pre-1939 memories of Europe and had been allowed only six months to complete the book: "This sort of writing really shouldn't even be attempted without at least 50, 000 words in background notes, made on location within the past year or so."

Fox ruefully admitted to Chandler that

The question of compromise between cool fact and emotion is one that has always bothered me, badly.  I realize full well that the average reader craves emotional experience, yet it is very difficult for me to supply anything of the sort.  My instinctive tendency is to supply only "facts," whether fictitious or not; to place them in studied relationship to each other, preferably ironical relationship; and to demand that the reader understand thoroughly, grasp the meaning, perform the often necessary doubeltake and work up his own emotional reaction.  This procedure is against the rules, I know, and sells no books.

the average American's idea of "Dutch"?

Fox noted that he was planning a trip to Europe and he hoped to write another espionage novel set there. However, he feared that financial considerations would force  him "to stick to routine bread and butter stuff for quite awhile. Right now I'm on one of those three-and-four-letter word, six-word sentence, cops and gangsters stories for which the reprint publishers are yammering."

In the hope of facilitating his book sales Fox was now advising publishers in publicity material "not to emphasize my Dutch origins."  He wryly explained that the "average American reader tends to associate the adjective Dutch only with cheese, wooden shoes and little boys plugging holes in dykes with their thumbs."

Chandler, who now was calling his correspondent simply "Fox" (rather than "Mr. Fox") urged in his next letter, "Cut out the 'mister' please."  Later in the year the two would advance, in term of their epistolary intimacy, to calling each other "Ray" and "Jimmy." More to come soon, I hope!

The Big Five from the Bottom Shelf: The Most Popular of the Least Popular Christies; Plus, The Tuesday Night Bloggers!

Miss Marple solves a mystery and
battles Fifties juvenile delinquency

In my last post on the Great Christie Lists Compilation, I gave the eighteen bottom-ranking Christies, the ones no one put on a list of favorites, and asked people, here and on Facebook, to tell me their favorites--their "Big Four," if you will--from this less favored bunch.

Well here are the results.  It's a "Big Five," actually:

First Place (TIE, with six votes each)
Lord Edgware Dies and The Seven Dials Mystery

Second Place (TIE, with four votes each)
At Bertram's Hotel, Cat among the Pigeons and They Do It with Mirrors

Congratulations to the Big Five from the Bottom Third!

Getting two votes apiece were:

Sacre bleu!
By the looks on their faces clearly
Poirot has received the shocking
news about Murder on the
Links, Hallowe'en Party and 
Elephants Can Remember

The Clocks, Dead Man's Folly, Dumb Witness, The Man in the Brown Suit, The Mystery of the Blue Train and Third Girl

Getting one vote apiece were:

The Big Four itself, They Came to Baghdad and Postern of Fate

That leaves four titles for which no one voted. Evidently, there's just no love for this Wee Four:

The Murder on the Links
Hallowe'en Party
Passenger to Frankfurt
Elephants Can Remember

Hallowe'en Party isn't that bad, I think, and The Murder on the Links has good points in my view, though I must admit it has never really grabbed me.

Passenger and Elephants--well, what can you say? These do come in for a lot of criticism. I'm just surprised Postern escaped the same fate! Lucy R. Fisher has made an interesting case for it, though.

It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings!

Thanks to everyone who participated!

And now I want to announce the formation of The Tuesday Night Bloggers: an international blogging "club" comprised of myself, Bev Hankins, Brad Friedman, Helen Szamuely, Jeffrey Marks Moira Redmond and Noah Stewart.

Each of us will do a Christie-related post every Tuesday night for the next six weeks (or so the theory goes).

I will post links to everyone's pieces here, so make sure you tune in on Tuesday and see what's being discussed!

And, yes, if this format reminds you of a certain Christie book, you may just be on to something!

Also, any other bloggers who may want to participate in the club, just let me know.

The Christies That Didn't Make the Cut

Eighteen Agatha Christie mystery novels did not receive any mention on the 31 Favorite Christie lists I recently compiled. Here are the unloved (comparatively) Christie mysteries:

Seven Dials Mystery: clocked out

From the Twenties
The Murder on the Links (1923)
The Man in the Brown Suit (1924)
The Big Four (1927)
The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)
The Seven Dials Mystery (1929)

From the Thirties
Lord Edgware Dies (1933)
Dumb Witness (1937)

From the Fifties
They Came to Baghdad (1951)
They Do It with Mirrors (1952)
Dead Man's Folly (1956)
Cat among the Pigeons (1959)

From the Sixties
The Clocks (1963)
At Bertram's Hotel (1965)
Third Girl (1966)
Hallowe'en Party (1969)

From the Seventies
Passenger to Frankfurt (1970)
Elephants Can Remember (1972)
Postern of Fate (1973)

Let's give these uncosseted Christies another chance!  If you had to pick your favorites--let's say your Big Four--from this bunch, what would they be?  I'm sure Lord Edgware is dying to know!

Favorite Christie Novels: Runners-Up

Here are the eighteen Christie novels in the recent lists compilation I did that didn't make the Top 20, but nevertheless made more than one list:

On Four Lists:
Hickory, Dickory, Dock
Murder Is Easy
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
Ordeal by Innocence
Sleeping Murder
Towards Zero

On Three Lists:
Death Comes as the End
Mrs. McGinty's Dead
Peril at End House
Sad Cypress
Murder in Three Acts (Three Act Tragedy)

One Two Lists:
Death in the Clouds
Destination Unknown
The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
Nemesis
The Secret Adversary
Sparkling Cyanide
Taken at the Flood

The play The Mousetrap also got multiple mentions, as well as the short story collections The Labours of Hercules and The Mysterious Mr. Quin.

Poirot wasn't quite as dominant here as he was on the Top 20 list, accounting for eight of the titles. Miss Marple accounted for three, Tommy and Tuppence one, and six were non-series.

searching for favorite Christies

The ten Christie titles that received only single mentions on the lists were:

Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
The Secret of Chimneys
Appointment with Death
Murder in Mesopotamia
The Sittaford Mystery
N or M?
A Pocket Full of Rye
A Caribbean Mystery
By the Pricking of My Thumbs
The Pale Horse (that would be my list)

Poirot was only in two of these, Miss Marple two, Tommy and Tuppence two and the remaining four were non-series.

The plays The Patient and The Witness for the Prosecution showed up too.

So, 48 novels were mentioned on at least one list.  That's a bit over two-thirds of her crime novels. Next time I will look at the twenty novels that made nobody's list!

The Results: Favorite Agatha Christie Novels

The results of 31 favorite Christie lists are in (including the list Christie herself once made) and the final results are posted below.  How close are these to the World's Favorite Christie list?  Pretty close, it turns out!

Top 11 Favorite Christie Novels According to the Passing Tramp's Compilation of Lists (ranked in order of popularity, ties included; the number of lists that each Christie novel appeared on follows in parenthesis):

1. And Then There Were None (24)
2. Murder on the Orient Express (23)
3. Death on the Nile (21)
4. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (18)
5. Five Little Pigs (15)
6. A Murder Is Announced (14)
7.-8. TIE Evil under the Sun and The Hollow (10)
9. Curtain (9)
10.-11. Crooked House and The Moving Finger (8)

The next 9, making the top 20, are as follows:

12.-14. TIE The ABC Murders, The Body in the Library and Endless Night (7)
15.-18. TIE After the Funeral, Cards on the Table, 4.50 from Paddington and Hercule Poirot's Christmas (6)
19.-20. TIE The Murder at the Vicarage and The Mysterious Affair at Styles (5)

12 Poirot novels, 5 Marples and 3 non-series.  Tut-tut, Tommy and Tuppence, better luck next time! As a reminder, here's the World's Favorite Christie Top Ten:

1. And Then There Were None (21%) 
2. Murder on the Orient Express (16%) 
3. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (8%)
4. Death on the Nile
5. The ABC Murders 
6. A Murder Is Announced
7. 4.50 from Paddington
8. Evil under the Sun
9. Five Little Pigs
10. Curtain

Some More Favorite Christie Lists

All good things, even an Agatha Christie, must come to end, but I thought I would close the spate of Christie posts for now with a collection of "favorite Christie" lists.  Near the end you will  find a list of Agatha Christie's own favorite Christies.

Note: The post will be edited as I receive, and add, more lists:

Sarah Weinman, Five Must-Read Agatha Christie Novels
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
The Murder at the Vicarage (1930)
And Then There Were None (1939)
Death Comes as the End (1944)
Endless Night (1967)

John Curran, Top Ten Agatha Christie Mysteries
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Peril at End House (1932)
Murder on the Orient Express (1934)
The ABC Murders (1936)
And Then There Were None 
Five Little Pigs (1942)
Crooked House (1949)
A Murder Is Announced (1950)
Endless Night 
Curtain (1975; written 1940s)

Declan Hughes, Top Ten Christies (actually eleven!)
Death on the Nile (1937)
And Then There Were None (1939)
Murder Is Easy (1939)
Sad Cypress (1940)
Evil Under the Sun (1941)
Five Little Pigs (1942)
The Hollow (1946)
Taken at the Flood (1948)
Crooked House (1949)
A Murder Is Announced (1950)
Endless Night (1967)

Brad Friedman, Twelve Favorite Christies
Murder on the Orient Express
Death on the Nile (1937)
Murder Is Easy
And Then There Were None (1939)
Five Little Pigs
The Moving Finger (1943)
Towards Zero (1944)
The Hollow
Crooked House (1949)
A Murder Is Announced (1950)
Mrs. McGinty's Dead (1952)
After the Funeral (1953)

Nick Fuller, A Dozen Favorite Christies (see comment on my list post)
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Murder on the Orient Express 
Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)
Death on the Nile 
Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1939)
And Then There Were None (1939)
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940)
Evil Under the Sun
Five little Pigs 
Towards Zero 
The Labours of Hercules (1947) (linked short story collection) 
A Murder Is Announced

Kevin Killian, Ten Favorite Christies
The Mysterious Mr. Quin (1930) (linked short story collection)
Death on the Nile
Sad Cypress
Five Little Pigs
Death Comes as the End
The Labours of Hercules
Taken at the Flood
Destination Unknown (1954)
Hickory, Dickory Dock (1955)
The Patient (1963) (play, part of Rule of Three)

Scott Ratner
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Murder on the Orient Express
Cards on the Table
Death on the Nile
And Then There Were None
Five Little Pigs
The Labours of Hercules (linked short story collection)
After the Funeral
The Unexpected Guest (play)
Curtain

Noah Stewart, My Top Ten Agatha Christie Novels
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Peril at End House
The ABC Murders
Five Little Pigs
The Body in the Library
The Moving Finger
The Hollow
Crooked House
A Murder Is Announced
After the Funeral

Dan Waterfield, the Ten Best Agatha Christie Books
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Murder at the Vicarage
Murder on the Orient Express
The ABC Murders
Death on the Nile
And Then There Were None
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
A Murder Is Announced
Curtain

Crime Squad, Agatha Christie's Top Ten
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Thirteen Problems (1931, linked short story collection)
Murder on the Orient Express
And Then There Were None
The Moving Finger
Towards Zero
Death Come as the End
Crooked House
Ordeal by Innocence (1958)
Endless Night

Crimethrillerhound Top Ten Agatha Christie Novels
The Secret Adversary
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Peril at End House
Murder on the Orient Express
The ABC Murders
And Then There Were None
Five Little Pigs
Crooked House
A Murder Is Announced
Curtain

Bev Hankins, Top Ten Christie Novels Right Now
The Secret Adversary
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Murder at the Vicarage
Murder on the Orient Express
Death in the Clouds
And Then There Were None
The Body in the Library
A Murder Is Announced
Destination Unknown
4.50 from Paddington

Moira Redmond, Top Five Agatha Christie Novels
Death on the Nile
Five Little Pigs
The Moving Finger
The Hollow
Sparkling Cyanide (1945)

Christine Poulson, My Top Five Agatha Christies
Hercule Poirot's Christmas
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
The Moving Finger
The Body in the Library
Curtain

Jeffrey Marks, Top Ten Christies
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Under Dog and Other Stories (1929)
Murder on the Orient Express
Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (1934)
Death on the Nile
The ABC Murders
And Then There Were None
The Hollow
A Murder Is Announced
Curtain

Rishi Arora, Best Agatha Christie Books
Murder on the Orient Express
Death on the Nile
And Then There Were None
Crooked House 
Endless Night

Elisabeth Grace Foley, My Ten Favorite Agatha Christie Novels
The Secret of Chimneys (1925)
Murder on the Orient Express
Cards on the Table
Death on the Nile
Appointment with Death
Hercule Poirot's Christmas
Five Little Pigs
Sparkling Cyanide (1945)
A Murder Is Announced
4.50 from Paddington

Neer, Twelve Best: Agatha Christie
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Witness for the Prosecution (play)
The Mysterious Mr. Quin
The Sittaford Mystery
Death on the Nile
Cards on the Table
Hercule Poirot's Christmas
And Then There Were None
Evil Under the Sun
N or M?
The Hollow
The Mousetrap

Dani, My Favorite Agatha Christie Novels
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Murder on the Orient Express
Death on the Nile
Evil under the Sun
The Murder at the Vicarage
4.50 from Paddington
A Caribbean Mystery (1964)
Nemesis (1971)

Frank Fraver, Best Murder Mysteries of Agatha Christie
Murder on the Orient Express
Death on the Nile
Cards on the Table
Murder Is Easy
And Then There Were None
Evil under the Sun
A Murder Is Announced
A Pocket Full of Rye (1953)
4.50 from Paddington
Nemesis

Nicholas Scrivens, Best Murder Mysteries of Agatha Christie
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Murder on the Orient Express
The ABC Murders
Death on the Nile
And Then There Were None
Evil under the Sun
4.50 from Paddington
By the Pricking of My Thumbs
Curtain 
Sleeping Murder

John Merridew, Best Murder Mysteries of Agatha Christie
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Murder on the Orient Express
Death in the Clouds
Death on the Nile
And Then There Were None
Sad Cypress
The Body in the Library
The Moving Finger
Ordeal by Innocence

Eben Flood, Best Murder Mysteries of Agatha Christie
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Murder on the Orient Express
Death on the Nile
Hercule Poirot's Christmas
Murder Is Easy
Five Little Pigs
The Hollow
Mrs. McGinty's Dead
4.50 from Paddington
Sleeping Murder

Luke Martschinske, Best Murder Mysteries of Agatha Christie
Murder on the Orient Express
Death on the Nile
And Then There Were None
Sad Cypress
Evil Under the Sun
The Body in the Library
Five Little Pigs
The Hollow
Mrs. McGinty's Dead
After the Funeral

Timothy, Best Murder Mysteries of Agatha Christie
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Murder on the Orient Express
Death in the Nile
And Then There Were None
Evil Under the Sun
The Body in the Library
Five Little Pigs
After the Funeral
Curtain

Garrett Hoff, Best Murder Mysteries of Agatha Christie
Murder on the Orient Express
Three Act Tragedy
The ABC Murders
Death on the Nile
And Then There Were None
Evil under the Sun
The Mousetrap
Hickory, Dickory, Dock
Ordeal by Innocence
The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (1962)

Brandy Gines, Best Murder Mysteries of Agatha Christie
Murder on the Orient Express
Three Act Tragedy
Cards on the Table
Hercule Poirot's Christmas
And Then There Were None
Five Little Pigs
The Mousetrap
Hickory, Dickory, Dock
Sleeping Murder
Nemesis

Shadowtune, Best Murder Mysteries of Agatha Christie
The Murder at the Vicarage
Murder on the Orient Express
Cards on the Table
And Then There Were None
The Body in the Library
The Moving Finger
A Murder Is Announced
The Mousetrap
After the Funeral
Hickory, Dickory Dock

Shell, Best Murder Mysteries of Agatha Christie
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Murder on the Orient Express
Three Act Tragedy
Death in the Clouds
Death on the Nile
And then There Were None
Evil under the Sun
The Hollow
The Mousetrap
The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

The Passing Tramp My Ten (Okay, Twelve) Favorite Christie Novels
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Murder at the Vicarage
Death on the Nile
And Then There Were None
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
Five Little Pigs
The Hollow
A Murder Is Announced
The Pale Horse (1961)
Endless Night
Curtain 
Sleeping Murder (1976, written 1940s)

Dame Agatha, Ten Favorite Titles
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Thirteen Problems
Murder on the Orient Express
And Then There Were None
The Moving Finger
Towards Zero
Crooked House
A Murder Is Announced
Ordeal by Innocence
Endless Night

Putting the results together, we get a top twelve of the following (lots of ties at the bottom end, so there actually are 21 books, 20 novels and 1 play):

1. And Then There Were None (24 lists)
2. Murder on the Orient Express (23 lists)
3. Death on the Nile (21 lists)
4. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (18 lists)
5. Five Little Pigs (15 lists)
6. A Murder Is Announced (14 lists)
7. Evil under the Sun (10 lists)
7. The Hollow (10 lists)
8. Curtain (9 lists)
9. Crooked House (8 lists) 
9. The Moving Finger (8 lists)
10. The ABC Murders (7 lists) 
10. Endless Night (7 lists)
10. The Body in the Library (7 lists)
11. 4.50 from Paddington (6 lists)
11. After the Funeral (6 lists)
11. Cards on the Table (6 lists)
11. Hercule Poirot's Christmas (6 lists)
12. The Murder at the Vicarage (5 lists)
12. The Mysterious Affair at Styles (5 lists)

11. The Mousetrap (5 lists)

Followed by these 12:
Hickory, Dickory, Dock (4 lists)
Towards Zero (4 lists)
Murder Is Easy (4 lists)
Ordeal  by Innocence (4 lists)
Sleeping Murder (4 lists) 
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (4 lists)
Death Comes as the End (3 lists)
Mrs. McGinty's Dead (3 lists)
Peril at End House (3 lists)
Sad Cypress (3 lists)
Three Act Tragedy (3 lists)
The Labours of Hercules (3 lists)

And 8 more, all mentioned on two lists:
Taken at the Flood
The Mysterious Mr. Quin
Destination Unknown
The Secret Adversary
The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
Death in the Clouds 
Sparkling Cyanide
Nemesis

Mysteries Unlocked Makes a Killing in Nashville

I'm pleased to announce that a book I edited, Mysteries Unlocked: Essays in Honor of Douglas G. Greene, was nominated by Killer Nashville as one of its 2015 Silver Falchion Finalists in the category of Best Non-Fiction: Academic.  The six nominees are:

Investigating the mysteries
of crime fiction

The Figure of the Detective--Charles Brownson

Bloody Italy: Essays on Crime Writing in Italian Settings, edited by Patricia Prandini Buckler

Mysteries Unlocked: Essays in Honor of Douglas G. Greene, edited by Curtis Evans

Blood on the Stage 400 BC to 1600 AD: Milestone Plays on Murder, Mytsery and Mayhem, Amnon Kabatchnik

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Elizabeth Kohlbert

James Ellroy: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction--James Mancall

Douglas G. Greene turned seventy last year and the collection I edited in honor of this event paid tribute to Doug with a wide-ranging group of essays on mystery fiction inspired by his own landmark works in the field of mystery genre history, including, of course, his biography of John Dickson Carr and his publishing with Crippen & Landru.  The list of Mystery Unlocked's contributors and subjects can be found here. You can take a peek inside the book here.

Congratulations to all the contributors to the book, which I hope will stand both as a permanent contribution to mystery genre history and as a tribute to Doug's important work within the field.

Winners of the Killer Nashville awards will be announced at the conference on October 31.

Dark Elegy: Endless Night (1967) by Agatha Christie (Christie in the Sixties)

Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery are born.
Every Morn and every Night
Some are born to Sweet Delight.
Some are born to Sweet Delight,
Some are born to Endless Night.

William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

Some are born to
Sweet Delight,
Some are born to
Endless Night

When Endless Night was published in 1967 it was honored, like Ross Macdonald's The Goodbye Look more famously would be a couple of years later, with a long notice in the New York Times Book Review, in which Christie's latest crime novel was heralded as a "genuine literary event."

Christie, it was pronounced

has thrown down the gauntlet as never before and produced a surpassing mystery that is almost as fine as a novel.  In fact were not the Christie name on Endless Night, no reader would suspect it of being a mystery.

Looking past the unintended back-handedness of this praise ("almost as fine as a novel"; no one would think of it as "being a mystery"), I think the reviewer hits on something here. Endless Night is fundamentally different from many of Christie's mysteries.

No doubt this was why, when I first read Endless Night at around the age of twelve or thirteen, I was distinctly unimpressed with it (though the ending did make me perk up). Where was Poirot (or, less interesting to me at that time, Miss Marple)?  Where was the murder in the first few chapters and the long list of quirky suspects?  What was with all this lovey-dovey stuff and personal introspection?

When I reread Endless Night as an adult, with a much more comprehensive knowledge of mystery and crime fiction behind me, I realized that the novel was a vastly more intriguing piece of work than I had credited it with being, back when I had read it many years previously.

Just as her rather grim dysfunctional family mystery, Ordeal by Innocence (1958), presaged the mysteries of the late P. D. James, Christie's Endless Night is more at home with the psychological crime novels of the late Ruth Rendell than it is with much of the classic country house mystery fiction of the Twenties and Thirties (though it does have a country house), being more preoccupied with character delineation than with crime detection.

Most people who read this blog are probably familiar with the plot of Endless Night.  In a daring move on the part of Christie, then in her late seventies, the novel is told retrospectively in the first person by Michael Rogers, a restless young Briton of "respectable" working-class origins.

In a story line that could have come from one of Christie's Mary Westmacott novels, Mike, a chauffeur for wealthy clients, meets Ellie, a "poor little rich girl" from the United States beset with an assortment of sponging relatives and attendants. They soon marry and build an enchanting country house, on a wooded property known as "Gipsy's Acre.

As may not be a surprise, given this appellation, there is a curse on the property, to the effect that anyone living there will meet with most ill fortune in life. (Here we in Gothic territory, then a subgenre enjoying a great resurgence in popularity.)  Over the novel hangs, like some menacing storm cloud, an effectively-conveyed sense of impending disaster, which is fulfilled in the final third of the tale.  It is only then that we get the crime and detection that characterizes classic Christie.

This part of the novel is drawn from an earlier Miss Marple short story, "The Case of the Caretaker," originally published in The Strand Magazine in 1941. A longer draft version of this story, "The Case of the Caretaker's Wife," appeared in 2011, in John Curran's book Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making.

This newly-discovered first version of the story is quite good, indeed certainly one of the best Miss Marple short stories, but it is put to definitive use in Endless Night.

In the end what impresses me so much about Endless Night is how Christie is able so powerfully to illustrate the melancholy thesis of her perfectly chosen epigraph from William Blake.

Christie's appropriation of the narrative voice of a young man in his twenties (born, one presumes, in the early 1940s), is not, I will concede, always word perfect, but in my view it is on the whole a most impressive character portrait, gracing a most impressive crime novel, one of the best in mystery literature's night gallery.

Ain't Nobody with Sleuths Like Us: Agatha Christie vs. Ian Fleming

In my last blog post I compared Agatha Christie's 1954 espionage novel of sorts, Destination Unknown, somewhat unfavorably, in terms of its level of sheer visceral excitement, to the contemporary thrillers by Ian Fleming about British secret service agent James Bond. Agatha Christie herself expressed some thoughts on the Bond novels in a 1966 interview.

Christie first admitted that the charms of her great Belgian sleuth, Hercule Poirot, had worn a bit thin on her after nearly half a century spent with him:

"a shrewd knowledge of human nature"
Christie's Hercule Poirot

I invented Poirot as a Sherlock Holmesian kind of thing.  I'm a little tired of him now, although a new Poirot, Third Girl, comes out in London next month.  I'm frankly surprised he's lasted so long in popularity.  He's not the kind of private eye you'd hire today, is he?  Not if you wanted a man to go out and get tough with people.

Interjected the interviewer, "Like James Bond?"

"I've read some of those," a "smiling" Christie answered.  "They're fun and they have that gadget appeal to youngsters...."

Christie went on to note, however, that she personally preferred reading the crime fiction of Georges Simenon ("those characters") and Elizabeth Daly ("scholarly writing, real people and plots arising from real-life situations").

licensed to kill
Fleming's James Bond

A year earlier, in 1965, a literary critic had speculated, concerning the question of the popular durability of the recently deceased Ian Fleming versus that of the still very much alive and kicking Christie, that the latter had the advantage because her crime fighters were not impossible superheros but rather ordinary humans endowed with "shrewd knowledge of human nature."

Regarding the Bond saga, the critic opined:

Gadgetry will date a story faster than slang, and, unfortunately, in 25 years James Bond will seem as dated as the mad-scientist movies of the 1930's do to us today....I do not mean to derogate Mr. Fleming, and I have seen every one of the Bond movies to date, but they really contain very little about human nature in them.  The characters...bear little relation to reality.

A half-century later, Anthony Horowitz has published a new authorized Bond novel, Trigger Mortis, and Spectre, the twenty-fourth Bond film, will open around the world in November, the previous Bond film Skyfall, having earned over 1.1 billion dollars worldwide, making it the most popular Bond film, I believe, since the great heyday of the franchise back in the Sixties.

On the other hand, Sophie Hannah's authorized Poirot novel, The Monogram Murders, was published a year ago (admittedly not to resounding huzzahs from yours truly); and this year British television has already seen a new television series based (purportedly) on Christie's early Tommy and Tuppence tales and a three-part television film adaptation of her bestselling novel, And Then There Were None, will air in December 2015/January 2016.

Looks to me like both authors (and their series characters) are holding on with the public rather well!

One more Christie post later today, as Christie Commemorative Week comes to a close at The Passing Tramp.

Deserted: Destination Unknown (1954), by Agatha Christie (Christie in the Fifties)

pearls aren't a nuisance in this one

Agatha Christie's time spent on the arid plains of the Middle East inspired some of her finest detective tales and well as a terrific mainstream novel, Absent in the Spring, reviewed by me here.  In the latter novel as well as her 1954 political thriller, Destination Unknown, she gives us a sense of the sort of self-annihilating mystical impact the desert could have on one.

An air of unreality pervades Destination Unknown, especially in the second half of the novel, when the protagonist's unknown destination is reached. Initially Destination Unknown (in the United States originally published as So Many Steps to Death) has the appearance of a Cold War thriller, with a plot concerning vanished western scientists, believed to have defected to the Soviet Union.

One such scientist is Tom Betterton, whose wife, Olive, is currently in hospital in Casablanca, dying of injuries received in a Moroccan plane crash. English intelligence authorities believe Olive Betterton, a loyal wife, was en route to join her wayward husband.

Determined to discover the whereabouts of Tom Betterton and the other missing scientists, the intelligence service employs Hilary Craven, an ordinary Englishwoman who had come to Casablanca to commit suicide but was providentially interrupted in her attempt, to masquerade as the dying Olive.  Hilary knows not where her steps will take her, but she is determined to take this new journey into the danger-filled unknown....

The first half of Destination Unknown I found pretty engrossing.  As others have pointed out Hilary Craven starts off as a more unusual Christie character, an initially distraught woman determined to commit suicide after the desertion of her husband and the death of her young daughter. (Autobiographical implications come to mind: was Christie thinking of what she herself might have done after Archie left her, had she lost her daughter as well?).

However, Hilary quickly transforms into what seemed to me the typical plucky Christie thriller heroine, after receiving a stern talking-to from a British intelligence officer:

"To you I suppose I was just..."

He finished the sentence for her.  "A woman with a noticeable head of red hair who hadn't the pluck to go on living."

She flushed.

"That a rather harsh judgement."

"It's a true one, isn't it?  I don't go in for being sorry for people.  For one thing it's insulting.  One is only sorry for people who are sorry for themselves.  Self pity is one of the biggest stumbling-blocks in the world today."

Hilary said thoughtfully:

"I think perhaps you're right...."

"Pluck" got Christie pretty far in life, it must be admitted (not to mention a damn great deal of talent). Yet this still felt a bit pat.

the American first edition

In her Golden Age Twenties thrillers Christie was not, let us say, overly concerned with realism, but neither was the thriller genre in that decade, for the most part.  By 1954, however, the English spy thriller had grown up considerably (though, to be sure, the James Bond franchise had recently commenced).

At first it appears that Destination Unknown might be more "grown up" too, more realistically dealing with espionage during the Cold War.  However, we soon find we are still very much in land of make-believe. This is fine, except that I found the second half of Destination Unknown notably unexciting for a thriller. (Compare it to Live and Let Die, published the same year.)

I must admit I had more sheer fun with Christie's earlier Fifties thriller, They Came to Baghdad (1951).  Yet I'm glad I finally read Destination Unknown, one of only two Christie crime novels I had never yet read.

Anyone care to guess what my last unread Christie mystery is?

The Christie Celebration Continues: The World's Ten Favorite Agatha Christie Novels and My Ten Favorite Agatha Christie Novels (Okay, Let's Make It Twelve):

Not altogether surprisingly Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None has recently been named the "world's favorite Christie."  However, the rest of the world's top ten might be said to include a couple of surprises:

1. And Then There Were None (1939)
2. Murder on the Orient Express (1934, Poirot)
3. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926, Poirot)
4. Death on the Nile (1937, Poirot)
5. The ABC Murders (1936, Poirot)
6. A Murder Is Announced (1950, Marple)
7. 4.50 from Paddington (1957, Marple)
8. Evil under the Sun (1941, Poirot)
9. Five Little Pigs (1942, Poirot)
10. Curtain (1975, Poirot)

Still #1

The first four titles after And Then There Were None are like a gallery of Poirot's greatest hits, while A Murder Is Announced has crystallized in the last quarter century, I think, as about everyone's favorite Miss Marple mystery.  The next two selections, 4.50 from Paddington and Evil under the Sun, are more surprising to me, however, not that they aren't entertaining novels. (Is a coincidence that Evil Under the Sun, like Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile was adapted several decades ago into a big-budget film?)

Five Little Pigs I think has become accepted at the best of Christie's more psychologically rigorous crime novels and one can't really carp at the inclusion of Curtain, Poirot's last case (recently televised).  It's a testament to the perceptiveness of the late crime writer and academic literary critic Robert Barnard that he highlighted two of the above books, A Murder Is Announced and Five Little Pigs, as "Three Prize Specimens" in A Talent to Deceive, his fine study of Christie's mystery fiction. (The other prize went to Hercule Poirot's Christmas.)

After thinking about for a few days, I finally decided on my own top ten list, then for good measure added two more, to finish it off at a dozen.  This list is in chronological order.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926, Poirot) and The Murder at the Vicarage (1930, Marple)

The debut Marple is bracketed with the landmark Poirot mystery from the Twenties.  Both are excellent village mystery tales, with fine satirical writing that often has gone unappreciated or perhaps unperceived by Christie critics, who tell us Christie had no actual writing (as opposed to plotting) ability.

When I first read Ackroyd as a kid I was bowled over, like everyone else, by the twist, and as an adult I still admire it as a narrative tour de force. As a youngster reading Vicarage I must admit that I was rather bored with it in comparison to Ackroyd, but today I greatly esteem it for its knowing village satire--it really helped launch the whole so-called "cozy" English village mystery subgenre--and its superb depiction of Miss Marple, never quite matched in the later books, where her character is somewhat softened and sentimentalized. (Barnard pithily termed this process "fluffification.")

When he reviewed The Murder at the Vicarage back at the time it was published Golden Age mystery writer and critic Todd Downing wrote that Miss Marple's reasoning "would do justice to the famous Dupin of Poe's 'The Purloined Letter.'"  He pronounced that "readers who are accustomed to the ordinary run of detective stories" would have to steel themselves to match wits with this formidable village spinster.

Death in the Nile (1937, Poirot) and And Then There Were None (1939) and One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940, Poirot)

From 1932 to 1942 Christie's fifteen Poirot novels maintain an amazing level of quality. It's an embarrassment of ratiocinative riches.  You could pick out any ten and they would be better than most of the detective fiction published in that same ten-year period, in terms of plotting (particularly the fine art of misdirection).

Picking only two Poirots to go along with that matchless non-series tour de force, And Then There None (Christie "noir" in my view), may seem grudging on my part, but I wanted to get away a bit from some of the Christie standbys, like Murder on the Orient Express and The ABC Murders.

Great as these books are, on rereading I prefer Death on the Nile, for the reasons outlined by Brad Friedman in his guest blog piece: the emotional triangle of the main characters is compellingly presented, the secondary characters are colorful and the plotting sublime.

As for One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, I plead a bit of bias here. The awesomely involved murder scheme and Poirot's investigation of it reminds me of the complex plots designed by such so-called "Humdrum" detective novelists as John Street and Freeman Wills Crofts. If the plot's the thing, this one has lots of it! And the ending provides an interesting rumination on the imperatives of justice, (a subject that arose the previous year in And Then There Were None).

Five Little Pigs (1942, Poirot) and The Hollow (1946, Poirot)

Before Five Little Pigs Christie was already giving inklings of taking a more psychologically complex approach in her mysteries, but this approach really bore full fruit for the first time in Five Little Pigs, quite a moving mystery as well as a very cleverly plotted one.

I've seen some people criticize the plot of The Hollow as too "straightforward" but I think it's a fine variation on one of her classic plot gambits.  Moreover The Hollow is, I believe, the finest "manners mystery" she wrote, the closest she got in her detective fiction to her own serious, mainstream "Mary Westmacott" novels--especially the impressive Absent in the Spring, published in between Five Little Pigs and The Hollow, in 1944--and the literary effervescence of the tales of her sister Crime Queens Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham. It bumps from the list another great Christie favorite of mine, Towards Zero.

Psychodrama:
television adaptation of
Christie's Five Little Pigs

A Murder Is Announced (1950, Marple) and The Pale Horse (1961) and Endless Night (1967)

People generally allow that a diminution in the quality of Christie's mysteries sets in after the 1950s, though there are of course high points.  Brad Friedman in his guest post highlighted one, After the Funeral; another is Mrs. McGinty's Dead.  I also especially admire Ordeal by Innocence, a rather gloomy, but quite interesting, crime novel about family dysfunction that presages P. D. James; and the consummately entertaining, if perhaps somewhat spottily ratiocinated, 4.50 from Paddington.

But none of them in my view match A Murder Is Announced, one of the genre's greatest village mysteries and a memorable evocation of rural English life in the austerity era (though the Central European war refugee cook Mitzi is a crude comic caricature that could have been something more).

As Brad pointed out earlier, some of the plots twists get a bit strained for absolute credence, but it's a brilliantly constructed plot nonetheless.

I'm including two late Christies as well, from the Sixties, a very mixed decade for the author. The Pale Horse is just so original and unexpected, a superb evocation of the seemingly supernatural and uncanny.

Poirot and Miss Marple are absent, but we do get lovably scatty mystery writer Ariadne Oliver, a very pleasing presence, as well as reappearances by some other, minor characters from the Christie canon.  The Queen of Crime brought a lot of later-in-life zest to this one.

Exceedingly eerie is Endless Night, in my opinion the highlight of her last decade or so of active mystery writing (though the Marple novels At Bertram's Hotel, By the Pricking of My Thumbs, Hallowe'en Party and Nemesis have some great points for me too, but unfortunately lack the narrative fleetness of classic Christie).

I'm rereading Endless Night now and it's holding up for me, even though I of course recall the remarkable denouement, on par with the fine work of modern crime writers like Ruth Rendell.

Curtain (1975, Poirot) and Sleeping Murder (1976, Marple)

That's ten, but I can't resist adding two last Christies, indeed the two last Christie detective novels published (though not the last written): Curtain and Sleeping Murder.

These two novels were the fifth and sixth Christies I read, back in 1976 and 1977, when I was ten and eleven  years old.

Curtain, Poirot's last case, offered one last truly stunning solution from the author.  Although she allegedly tired of Poirot, Christie gave him a memorable send-off here, one befitting a true Great Detective.

Sleeping Murder, a Miss Marple case (not really the detective's last one), is a novel I have always found fascinating in its not so cozy exploration of morbid criminal psychology (what Miss Marple emphatically calls wickedness).

Though she lives on to detect another day, Miss Marple here ascends to the celestial sleuth heavens, figuratively speaking, for she acts as a remarkable guardian angel over a charming, if rather guileless, young couple.

So that's my Christie top ten (okay, twelve).  What is yours?