Agatha Christie Re-Reading Project #4: Books 11-13

I've slowed right down on my Christie re-read project, being busy with work, reading new books on prizelists, and my self-imposed June Month of Poetry commitment. That said, I have now made it through books 11-13, so time to post them! I don't expect 14-17 to be up in the next month though; I did think this was going to be a project extending over more than a year, and it looks like that is correct!

This set is where the streams cross, and Poirot really hits stride while Marple has a less great one. Because I'm in a Hercule state of mind now, I'm going to change up my methodology and do the next four Poirots as the next set (The Big Four, The Mystery of the Blue Train, Peril at End House, and Lord Edgware Dies). After that, I'll do a Marple / Tommy and Tuppence set.


The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, written in 1926, is really the first Christie novel where she did something ground-breaking in terms of the way she used the form and the reveal. It's quite a difficult one to review, because really to say anything substantive about the plot risks being a spoiler and the true delight of this book is to come to it unspoiled. I can still remember my absolute happiness reading it the first time, aged 13 1/2!

That said, on re-read, I think the plot still held up very well. It had a lot of the tried and true "English country house murder" tropes and character archetypes, but they worked well in the story. The use of Poirot, retired and trying to grow vegetable marrows, was effective and engaging, and the ending was SO satisfying, even though I knew it was coming. Easy 8.5/10 for me.






This Miss Marple novel is a quite well plotted poison-pen-leading-on-to-murder story, with the usual number of misdirects and red herrings, but for me, it fell down significantly on two axes:

1. I loathed Jerry, the narrator, from the first page. I don't remember disliking him that much when I first read it, but as an adult woman, he's exactly the kind of condescending self-focused man I can't stand. One of my friends says about the attitude taken by people like him, "They're not like other people - pain hurts them" and that about sums it up.

2. Related to 1, the extremely icky relationship between the mid to late 30s Jerry and the 20-year-old Megan, who is continuously described as child-like / inexperienced/ adolescent etc. I can't believe now that no alarm bells went off in my 14-year-old head when I first read it, but now, ohhhhh boy. 

For both these reasons, this one comes in at a bare pass 5.5/10.


This is the second and last of the stand-alones that I am tackling in this project. It's one of Christie's later novels, published in 1961, and shows her trying to be hip with the cool kids and get into 60s cultural shifts (which is somewhat funny here - she does a lot better job with it in the 1966 Poirot novel Third Girl, which is absolute banger that I am looking forward immensely to revisiting).

The plot of this one circulates around the efforts of the narrator-protagonist, Mark Easterbrook, to solve the mysterious deaths associated with an ominous witchcraft / ill-wishing operation in the English countryside, called The Pale Horse. The schtick is that if you want someone dead, you can go visit these three weird spooky old ladies and make a bet on their survival. If you "lose" (ie the person dies), you have to pay The Pale Horse your losing bet (ie the fee). As Easterbrook discovers, this method seems to have a worryingly high success rate.

The set-up for the story is impeccable - it hooks you from page 1 - and the twists and turns are satisfying and beautifully paced. When I first read it in the late 80s, I did not guess the solution, which in itself elevates it to being one of the better standalones and a good Christie overall.

Not too many yikes alerts in this one - the usual sniffing at the working class, and one cameo from a friend of Easterbrook's with a gross attitude to women, but otherwise not bad. I guess Christie was cutting her jib to the prevailing winds by 1961 and the prose is all the better for it. 8/10 for me.

RUNNING LIST

Poirot books targeted (highlighted when read):

  1. The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920): 6.5/10
  2. The Murder on the Links (1923): 6.5/10
  3. Poirot Investigates (1924, ss): 4.5/10
  4. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926): 8.5/10
  5. The Big Four (1927)
  6. The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)
  7. Peril at End House (1932)
  8. Lord Edgware Dies (1933) 
  9. Murder on the Orient Express (1934) 
  10. Three Act Tragedy (1935) : 6/10
  11. Death in the Clouds (1935)
  12. The A.B.C. Murders (1936) 
  13. Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)
  14. Cards on the Table (1936)
  15. Murder in the Mews (1937, ss) 
  16. Dumb Witness (1937) 
  17. Death on the Nile (1937) 
  18. Appointment with Death (1938)
  19. Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1938) 
  20. Sad Cypress (1940)
  21. One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940) 
  22. Evil Under the Sun (1941)
  23. Five Little Pigs (1942) 
  24. The Hollow (1946) 
  25. The Labours of Hercules (1947, ss)
  26. Taken at the Flood (1948) 
  27. Mrs McGinty's Dead (1952)
  28. After the Funeral (1953) 
  29. Hickory Dickory Dock (1955)
  30. Dead Man's Folly (1956)
  31. Cat Among the Pigeons (1959)
  32. The Clocks (1963)
  33. Third Girl (1966)
  34. Hallowe'en Party (1969)
  35. Elephants Can Remember (1972)
  36. Poirot's Early Cases (1974, ss)
  37. Curtain (written about 1940, published 1975) 
Miss Marple books targeted (highlighted when read):

  1. The Murder at the Vicarage (1930, Novel): 7.5/10
  2. The Thirteen Problems (1932, short story collection featuring Miss Marple, also published as The Tuesday Club Murders): 8/10
  3. The Body in the Library (1942, Novel): 8.5/10
  4. The Moving Finger (1943, Novel): 5.5/10
  5. A Murder Is Announced (1950, Novel)
  6. They Do It with Mirrors (1952, Novel) – also published in the United States as Murder With Mirrors
  7. A Pocket Full of Rye (1953, Novel)
  8. 4.50 from Paddington (1957, Novel) – also published in the United States as What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!
  9. The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (1962, Novel)
  10. A Caribbean Mystery (1964, Novel)
  11. At Bertram's Hotel (1965, Novel)
  12. Nemesis (1971, Novel)
  13. Sleeping Murder (1976, Novel)
Tommy and Tuppence and stand-alone books targeted (highlighted when read):
  1. And Then There Were None (1939): 8.5/10
  2. The Pale Horse (1961): 8/10
  3. The Secret Adversary (1922 novel): 5.5/10
  4. Partners in Crime (1929 short story collection): 6/10
  5. N or M? (1941 novel)
  6. By the Pricking of My Thumbs (1968 novel)
  7. Postern of Fate (1973 novel)

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