In Which We Celebrate the Queen of Crime's Birthday

Dame Agatha Christie at her typewriter
(15 September 1890 - 12 January 1976)

This is Dame Agatha Christie's birthday. Today, her cake would have to be large enough to hold 123 candles.

If you are a fan of this mystery writer, as I am, you will never run out of things to read as she penned almost 70 books, over 100 short stories, as well as plays - those with original plots as well as those adapted from her novels.

I saw her play The Mousetrap at St Martin's Theatre in London twice - once in 1982 and again in 2002. I was just as surprised upon the revelation of the murderer the first time as I was twenty years later! It is the longest running play ever. It had its 25,000th performance last November and is still going. I do remember that the audience is asked to keep the ending a secret - my lips are sealed. 

There is much to be learned about this beloved author online and I will let you do your own research if you are so inclined. To get you started though, here is a link to a short video about her courtesy of Biography.com.

Agatha Christie, An Autobiography was published in 1977, the year after her death. I have added it to my TBR list even though it is some 600 pages long! I am currently reading her memoir, Come, Tell Me How You Live, which is a very amusing tale of her experiences with her husband, archaeologist Max Mallowan, in the Middle East. 

Ms. Christie's former home in Devon is open to the public and contains many of her family pieces. It would be a wonderful place to visit. For a glimpse, here is a link to the National Trust's page featuring Greenway Estate.

For tonight, to celebrate her birthday, I rented the DVD The Murder on the Links with David Suchet as the dapper M. Hercule Poirot (my favorite of her detectives). I recently read the book and wrote about it here. It will be fun to watch the story unfold on screen. As I remember, the plot has many twists and turns. Just what this mystery writer is famous for.

How will you celebrate Dame Agatha Christie's birthday?

The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie

There is nothing more comforting after a long day than settling in with a mystery involving Hercule Poirot. And, The Murder on the Links (1923) is no exception. 

M. Poirot has received an urgent letter requesting his assistance in France. The plea comes from Mr. Renauld, a wealthy man with business holdings in South America. Unfortunately, by the time M. Poirot and his ever-faithful Hastings arrive, Renauld is dead. Stabbed in the back with a letter opener.  His body discovered on the golf course next to his villa's grounds. 

Mon Dieu! So far Dame Agatha has sweetened the pot with a whisper of blackmail, a grieving widow, a disinherited son, a possible mistress, a young woman on a train, a missing murder weapon, footprints, lack of footprints, young love, and a worthy protagonist for M. Poirot - a Monsieur Giraud of the Paris Sûreté. 

Unlike M. Poirot who uses his little grey cells, M. Giraud likes to dig about and look for the tiniest evidence of, well,  evidence. He is a bit brash and arrogant, and it will be a treat to see M. Poirot gently put him in his place.

One of the surprises that Dame Agatha has in store for the reader is a bit of gardening advice. So unexpected! I found this little exchange between M. Poirot and Auguste, the long-time gardener at the villa, to be delightful:

"I was admiring these magnificent geraniums. They are truly superb. They have been planted long?"

"Some time, monsieur. But of course, to keep the bed looking smart, one must keep bedding out a few new plants, and remove those that are over, besides keeping the old blooms well picked off."

"You put in some new plants yesterday, didn't you? Those in the middle there, and in the other bed also."

"Monsieur has a sharp eye. It takes always a day or so for them to 'pick up'. Yes, I put ten new plants in each bed last night. As monsieur doubtless knows, one should not put in plants when the sun is hot."

Yes, murder and gardening tips. What more could a reader want?

Double Sin and Other Stories by Agatha Christie

I am making excellent headway in my weekend reading. Finished up the eight stories in Agatha Christie's Double Sin. Six of them feature either Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot. Two of the stories are ghost stories or supernatural tales, which I didn't really care for. One had to do with a doll that moved around the sitting room of a seamstress shop and the other was a story about a medium and her last séance.

Ms. Christie's forte is her mysteries, that is for sure.

The title story, "Double Sin", has Hastings and M. Poirot off to visit a friend on the north Devon coast. On the journey they meet a young woman who is not as innocent as she appears. She and her aunt, who runs a small antiques shop, have double dipping (or double clipping) in mind for their client. Ah, but M. Poirot is not to be fooled.

Although Dame Agatha's writing if pretty straight forward, occasionally she delights with such flights of fancy as the following paragraph from "The Double Clue" about the disappearance of precious jewels:

But we were destined to have a reminder of the Hardman case that afternoon. Without the least warning the door flew open, and a whirlwind in human form invaded our privacy, bringing with her a swirl of sables (it was as cold as only an English June day can be) and a hat rampant with slaughtered ospreys. Countess Vera Rossakoff was a somewhat disturbing personality.

And this funny little sentence spoken by you-know-who:

I am sorry to hurry you but I am keeping a taxi -- in case it should be necessary for me to go to Scotland Yard; and we Belgians, madame, we practice the thrift.

Can you not just hear David Suchet touching his moustaches and quoting that line in his clipped accent? 

Middlebrow Mysteries

Mirabile Dictu writes that she enjoys reading middlebrow fiction. I enjoy reading Middlebrow Mysteries. Nothing too gory, too psychological, or too creepy. No scary Scandinavian sagas for me. I just want my crimes stories to be witty and well-written.

Here is a sampling of a few Middlebrow Mysteries I have recently finished:

Why Me? by Donald Westlake (1983)

Oh dear. Poor John Dortmunder. In this caper, his fifth, he has unwittingly stolen the hugely valuable Byzantine Ruby while burglarizing a jewelry store. He doesn't even realize he has it. But now all of New York City's finest are after him along with the FBI. Not only that, but because the cops are shaking down all the street criminals, they in turn are trying to find out who stole the ruby so they can get the cops off their backs. And then there are the terrorists. Everyone one wants to get hold of him. John and Andy Kelp take to the sewers to avoid grievous bodily harm. Westlake has fun making fun of (at the time) new telephone gadgetry and paints a hilarious picture of the police chief and the two FBI fellows.

Murder in the Mews by Agatha Christie (1937) 

Actually this volume contains four novellas or short stories by Dame Agatha all starring M. Hercule Poirot. In the title tale, a young woman commits suicide. Or was it murder? Only her roommate holds the clue that can help solve the mystery.

In the second, "The Incredible Theft", plans for a bomber plane go missing and M. Poirot is called into action in the middle of the night. It takes some snooping about in the Michaelmas daisies of Lord Charles Mayfield's stately home to discover who stole the missing blueprints.

"Dead Man's Mirror" presents another suicide-or-murder case for the Belgian detective at the country manor house of Sir Gervase Chevenix-Gore. Sir G. summoned Poirot but by the time he arrives, the summoner is dead. This one has a classic "everyone assembled in the study" denouement.

Finally, in "Triangle at Rhodes", a vacationing M. Poirot cannot escape the tragedy of a poisoning and a lovers' triangle. Poor Poirot. He just can't seem to get away from murder.

I am currently reading the sixth Dortmunder novel, Good Behavior. While trying to escape from the police, John literally falls through the roof of a convent. He is rescued by the the nuns who have taken a vow of silence (which allows Westlake to have some fun working out the communication between sisters and burglar).  In lieu of turning him and his burglary tools over to the police, the nuns (whose names all are Mary...Mother Mary Forcible, Sister Mary Serene, Sister Mary Capable, Sister Mary Accord, Sister Mary Vigor...) want Dortmunder to rescue Sister Mary Grace whose wealthy father has kidnapped her from the convent and is having her 'deprogrammed' in his apartment on the 76th floor of his bank building. 

How will Dortmunder ever cope with hidden elevators, bodyguards with guns, and Mother Mary Forcible? 

Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie

I just finished Cards on the Table, a Hercule Poirot mystery by Dame Agatha Christie. I had not read this one before.

Eight folks at a dinner party; afterwards, two tables of bridge. Later, the host, a Mephistophelian-like fellow Mr. Shaitana, is found dead sitting by the fireplace. Stabbed through the heart. Fortunately, M. Hercule Poirot is a guest as well as Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard, Colonel Race with the Secret Service, and Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, the mystery writer who shows up now and again in Ms. Christie's tales. 

The other guests, the ones playing bridge in the room where the host was killed, all have secrets in their pasts which give each of them a motive for murder. 

And so the game is afoot.

As secrets are revealed - each suspect could possibly have murdered in the past and had been found out by Mr. Shaitana - the case becomes curiouser and curiouser. 

Of course, M. Poirot and his little grey cells unravel the mystery but, alas, not before two others are found dead. It is all very psychologically intriguing and great fun. (Well, except for the dead people).

Ms. Christie gives Mrs. Oliver an opportunity to tell a young woman, Rhoda, that being a writer is hard work, that there is much thinking involved about plots and poisons.

Mrs. Oliver: “One actually has to think, you know. And thinking is always a bore. And you have to plan things. And then one gets stuck every now and then, and you feel you’ll never get out of the mess—but you do! Writing’s not particularly enjoyable. It’s hard work like everything else.

"... Some days I can only keep going by repeating over and over to myself the amount of money I might get for my next serial rights. That spurs you on, you know. So does your bankbook when you see how much overdrawn you are.”


“It must be so wonderful to be able to think of things,” said Rhoda.

“I can always think of things,” said Mrs. Oliver happily. “What is so tiring is writing them down. I always think I've finished, and then when I count up I find I've only written thirty thousand words instead of sixty thousand, and so then I have to throw in another murder and get the heroine kidnapped again. It’s all very boring.”

I suspect these are the words of experience.