Agatha Christie

Colleen Cambridge: Murder Takes the Stage

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Phyllida Bright #3

Murder Takes the Stage is the fourth addition to Colleen Cambridge’s Phyllida Bright series. Our protagonist is obviously Phyllida Bright, housekeeper of Mallowan Hall. She also happens to be good friends with the lady of the hall, Agatha Christie. Living with the mystery writing legend also gives Phyllida Bright early access to her favorite detective stories featuring Hercule Poirot. Both women have a knack for mysteries, and have helped the local authorities to solve several murders. Now they are traveling to London for a bit of a vacation. Mrs. Christie and her husband are, anyway, and Phyllida isn’t exactly thrilled about it, which isn’t surprising given her rather complicated past revolving around her deceased husband. However, she isn’t about to let a little discomfort keep her from performing her duties. read more

Ragnar Jonasson: Death at the Sanitorium

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Author Jonasson, an Icelandic fan of Agatha Christie from a child, had read all the available books translated by the time he was 17.  At that point, craving more, he simply went to the publisher and asked if he himself could translate more of her previously untranslated titles.  They agreed, and Jonasson was treated to a master class in plot, structure, character and setting as he did his work.  As evidenced by his own books, the lessons certainly took.  Like Christie’s, his books are perfectly structured, have memorably distinctive characters and always feature an evocative setting.  Oh, and they are also short, another valuable lesson he gleaned from Agatha. read more

Teresa Peschel: Agatha Christie, She Watched

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The subtitle: “One woman’s plot to watch 201 Agatha Christie movies without murdering the director, screenwriter, cast, or her husband.” This is a fabulous and useful reference book.  If you think you are familiar with all the Marple-Poirot-And Then There Were None adaptations, you probably aren’t.  It’s encyclopedic, with each film rated regarding fidelity to text and quality of movie, along with a cast list, director and screenwriter for each film.  The real plus are the snarky little end comments.  I started putting post its on the ones she recommends as fabulous. read more

Erica Ruth Neubauer: Intrigue in Istanbul

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Intrigue in Istanbul is the fourth book in Erica Ruth Neubauer’s Jane Wunderly series, featuring an American war widow in the 1920s.  Each book has a different setting: the first takes place in Egypt, the second at an English country manor, the third on a transatlantic voyage on the sister ship of the Titanic, and the fourth, obviously, in Istanbul.  Neubauer makes great use of the setting in each of her books, and this is no exception.  She takes the reader to Istanbul along with Jane, as her intrepid heroine searches for her missing father as well as a legendary relic.  This is a tribute to Indiana Jones, but with some significant nods to Agatha Christie. read more

Colleen Cambridge: A Trace of Poison

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The second book in Cambridge’s delightful series about Agatha Christie’s housekeeper, Phyllida Bright, does not disappoint.  The first one was a take on The Body in the Library; this book takes place at a “Murder Fête,” an early version of a mystery book conference.  In this iteration, there are just a few authors, but they are Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, G.K. Chesterton, and Anthony Berkley.  Pretty swoon-worthy.  There’s also a short story contest judged by the celeb authors, and the outcome is hotly anticipated by the local mystery writing group. The prize is publication. read more

Sulari Gentill: The Woman in the Library

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This odd, endearing and weirdly tricky book is a meta meditation on the traditional detective story.  Playing off of Agatha Christie’s The Body in the Library, author Sulari Gentill yanks this classic into the present.  In Christie’s Body the corpse of an apparently unknown young woman appears in the library of a private home.  In Gentill’s update, four young people are sitting near each other in the Boston Public library.  The main character, Freddie (or Winifred), a mystery writer, is working on a new book and she’s observed the others sitting near her, giving them nicknames as she slots them into a possible book.  Freud girl, Heroic Chin and Handsome Man have all invaded her imagination, when their real iterations hear a blood-curdling scream. read more

A Story Told in Cover Art: Murder at the Vicarage

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Agatha Christie’s first Miss Marple book, The Murder at the Vicarage, was published by Collins Crime Club in the UK in October of 1930. It’s one of my very favorite books – with its clever plot, humor, beautifully rendered characters and of course, the introduction in novel form of the subversive Miss Marple, it stands the test of time and has never been out of print.  For that reason, it’s fun to look at covers through the years.

The US first edition of Vicarage was published by Dodd, Mead and is what I would think of as a “prestige” cover, with its old English font and decorous arrangement of text.  There’s no art to speak of, no interpretation of the plot. read more

Lori Rader-Day: Death at Greenway

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The most towering figure in mystery fiction is Agatha Christie.  She created and influenced countless plots and tropes, and invented iconic detectives.  Surely no mystery writer can set a pen to paper without feeling in her debt.  Re-paying this debt with her impressionistic Death at Greenway is Lori Rader-Day, a writer known for multiple point of view novels and indirect storytelling.  Her style could not be further from Agatha’s, but – there’s still that debt to be paid.

The book is set during WWII at Mrs. Christie’s summer home, Greenway, in Devon.  During the war the Mallowans (for that was Agatha’s married name) lent their house to a war nursery – or to children evacuated from London, cared for by nurses.  Rader-Day has chosen to focus her story on Bridget Kelly, a failed nurse in training, who takes up the war nursery job out of desperation. read more

Sophie Hannah: The Killings at Kingfisher Hill

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Golden age detectives are the perfect characters to provide a continuation of a series.  Nero Wolfe, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot – all have such well established character traits, and yet do not especially develop or change  – that they can be taken by another writer and made fresh.  Sophie Hannah is obviously familiar with Poirot and obviously loves him, as every reader does, despite his quirks.

Hannah also manages the feat of showing, not telling, Poirot’s cleverness and intelligence as he unravels a tricky case.  Like the great queen of crime herself, Hannah’s unraveling is only tricky from a certain angle, from another (Poirot’s) it’s more straightforward.  The telling is all in the angles.  This is a feat of sheer storytelling power. read more

Alex Pavesi: The Eighth Detective

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While Alex Pavesi’s concept in The Eighth Detective isn’t entirely new, it’s still entirely welcome and ingenious.  John Dickson Carr, in his novel The Three Coffins (1935), presented a locked room mystery while at the same time breaking away to analyze and discuss the mechanics of detective fiction to his readers.  Carr’s hero, Dr. Gideon Fell, takes on the job of explaining the different plot variations.  Pavesi has taken it a step further even than the ingenious Carr, however.

Pavesi’s central character in the novel, Grant McCallister, lives a hermit’s life on a remote island.  Twenty years ago, he’d written a book called The White Murders, published in the early 1940’s.  The book in our hands is a series of short murder mystery stories, interspersed with McCallister’s mathematical analysis of the murder mystery. There are a certain number of required elements and within this structure – and, as mystery readers everywhere already know – there are endless variations. read more