{"id":9489,"date":"2022-02-14T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-14T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9489"},"modified":"2022-03-10T07:56:32","modified_gmt":"2022-03-10T12:56:32","slug":"a-valentine-to-agatha-christie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9489","title":{"rendered":"A Valentine to Agatha Christie"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Guardian<\/em> has a new monthly guide to the works of selected authors and their first pick<\/a> recently was the creator of the intrepid Miss Marple and Belgian dandy Hercule Poirot, the original queen of cozy crime, Agatha Christie. Modern-day crime novelist Janice Hallett wrote the commentary, which amounted to a love-letter to the Dame of Detection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early on, Hallett reveals her pick for the \u201cbest\u201d Christie: And Then There Were None<\/em>. You may \u00a0I remember it by the title Ten Little Indians, <\/em>which was used in the 70s paperback edition and as the title of two films. Says Wikipedia, it\u2019s the world\u2019s best-selling mystery, with more than 100 million copies sold. Christie said it was the most difficult book she ever wrote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you really want to go down a rabbit hole, the Wikipedia article<\/a> includes a chart showing how each of the characters died and how the manner of their demise matches up with the nursery rhyme. You get a little peek into Christie\u2019s head as she made those associations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The isolated setting, the group of friends, a shocking death. That staple of crime fiction today was debuted in Christie\u2019s lesser-known Sparkling Cyanide<\/em>, and it’s the best story to refer to at a dinner party, says Hallett. (Remember to strike her from your invite list.) Echoes of both of these books are apparent in many modern tales\u2014One by One<\/em> by Ruth Ware and two books by Lucy Foley\u2014The Hunting Party <\/em>and The Guest List<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hallett dubs 1934’s Murder on the Orient Express<\/em> and its many cinematic and theatrical adaptations as Christie\u2019s \u201cclassic.\u201d The photo above shows the (movable) set created for a brilliant production of the theatrical version of the story at Princeton’s McCarter Theatre. Real-life events\u2014the Lindbergh baby\u2019s kidnapping and a stranded train in Turkey\u2014were Christie\u2019s inspirations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The one Hallett calls \u201cthe shocker\u201d is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd<\/em>, whose sudden, violent death is investigated by his neighbor, Hercule Poirot. It was voted best crime novel ever[!] by the British Crime Writers\u2019 Association in 2013. The title, alas, always reminds me of a famous 1945 essay by American critic Edmund Wilson, no fan of detective fiction. His article, \u201cWho Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?\u201d, expressed an opinion generations of mystery fans have gleefully ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo by T. Charles Erickson<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Guardian has a new monthly guide to the works of selected authors and their first pick recently was the creator of the intrepid Miss Marple and Belgian dandy Hercule Poirot, the original queen of cozy crime, Agatha Christie. Modern-day … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Millions of people around the world have read her books and seen the movies and plays made from them--most recently, the new Death on the Nile.\n","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1335,62,52,40,3,104],"tags":[904],"class_list":["post-9489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amateur-detective","category-authors","category-crime","category-fiction","category-mystery","category-the-morgue","tag-agatha-christie"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2t3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9489"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9491,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9489\/revisions\/9491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}