Jennifer Kasius - Agatha Christies Poirot: The Essential Novels in One Sitting

A Running Press Miniature Edition

2014 by Running Press

All rights reserved under the Pan-American and

International Copyright Conventions

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher.

The proprietary trade dress, including the size and format of this Running Press Miniature Edition is the property of Running Press. It may not be used or reproduced without the express written permission of Running Press.

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Digit on the right indicates the number of this printing

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014937503

ISBN 978-0-7624-5559-1

Running Press Book Publishers

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

2300 Chestnut Street

Philadelphia, PA 19103-4371

Visit us on the web!

www.runningpress.com

Contents

AGATHA CHRISTIE, 1946

A GATHA CHRISTIE is not only the best-selling mystery writer of all time, but also the best-selling novelist, ever. She follows only the Bible and Shakespeare in popularity, with worldwide sales of more than two billion copies to date. Christie was certainly industrious during her lifetime, writing more than eighty books (one for almost every year she lived). Her oeuvre expands beyond the mystery novel to include an autobiography, short story collections, popular plays (including The Mousetrap and Witness for the Prosecution), and even romances (written under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott).

But of course, its the whodunit for which we love her the most. It was evident from the time of Christies first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)when her famous sleuth Hercule Poirot appears on the scenethat she knew the elements that make a good mystery. She recalls embarking on that first novel in her autobiography: The whole point of a good detective story was that it must be somebody obvious, but at the same time... you would find that it was not obvious, that he could not possibly have done it. Though really of course, he had done it.

Thats the trick she uses consistently throughout her workalways surprising her readers who feel quite sure they have it all figured out. Of course, she plants plenty of false clues and red herrings along the way, just to spice things up. And there are also the shocking plot twistsone of which, famously done in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, caused quite a stir when published. Some of her detractors charged that she wasnt playing fair. Yet in re-reading any Christie mystery, we know that she certainly does play fair. She gives her readers all the clues and hints they needyet almost always, she manages to shock us in the end.

Christie confessed that when she first started writing mysteries, she was firmly entrenched in the Sherlock Holmes conceit. She provided an eccentric detective (Poirot), an assistant who acts as a foil (Captain Hastings), as well as an insider from Scotland Yard to help with investigations (Inspector Japp). At the time of Styles publication she was working at the dispensary during World War I, and had access to many poisons. It was her growing knowledge of various drugs and their reactions that inspired this first plot, and figured in many of her subsequent mysteries.

She would later insert many of her interests and passions in her novels, setting one novel aboard the Orient Express, for example. Christie was much enamored of train travel, and journeyed to Istanbul in 1928 on the famed railway, embarking on an exciting adventure as a new divorcee. After marrying her second husband, renowned archeologist Max Mallowan, she made several subsequent journeys to the Middle East, and often used it as a setting for her novels (including Death On the Nile, Murder in Mesopotamia, Death Comes as the End, among others). She was also fond of writing the closed estate murder mysterywherein all the suspects are enclosed in one remote location (as in Ten Little Indians, 4:50 from Paddington, and many others). Her knowledge of English village life (and the villagers love of gossip) figures in most of her work, particularly in the stories surrounding her beloved busybody sleuth, Miss Jane Marple.

But it is Poirot who wins upon examining Christies entire body of work: He is the sleuth that she returns to most often, most likely because he was the detective that was most popular with her fans. She admits to eventually loathing her creation. Poirots trademark pomposity and meticulous nature wore rather thin with her. But unlike Arthur Conan Doyle, who also came to dislike his sleuth, Christie did not kill him off in the height of his popularity. Instead, she took a precautionary measure of sorts by composing the novel Curtain: Poirots Last Case during the London Blitz of the Second World War. In the event of her death, she wanted to give her fans a satisfying end to the beloved character. Of course, it turned out she did not die in the Blitz, but carried on for several more decades. Curtain was finally published in 1975, a few months before her own death. In the novel, Poirot is reunited with his dear friend Captain Hastings to solve a mystery at the estate where it all startedStyles Manor. Its a satisfying full-circle story arc, and proof that Agatha Christie cared for her fans. She wanted to send off her popular detective with a flourish.

It is the brain, the little grey cells, on which one must rely. One must seek the truth from withinnot without.

Poirot

H ercule Poirot was born in the novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in which he is a war refugee from Belgium living in a remote English village. He is a retired police officer famous in his own land for cracking difficult cases. Christie describes him as a small man, only five feet four inches, with an egg-shaped head and a rather prominent mustache. In her autobiography, Christie writes at length on how she conceived the character: he would be meticulous, very tidy. I could see him... always arranging things, linking things in pairs, liking things square instead of round. (Modern readers cant help but wonder if the OCD character in Monk was partly based on Poirot.) She also determines that he would be brainy, and be reliant on his little grey cells (a recurring phrase from Poirot). He should also have a grand yet quirky name, just like Sherlock Holmes.