Sollosi's Favorite Agatha Christie Books

Agatha Christie is the most popular author in the history of fiction, and I've been reading her books for about twenty years.  So of course I have a mental ranking of her works.  

Agatha Christie perfected the modern mystery novel.  Sure, she wasn't the genre's originator and probably came along too late to be called a pioneer, but she is by far the most popular mystery author ever and mastered the arts of setting red herrings, foreshadowing plot twists, and presenting the deductions of a brilliant detective.  I've read around 35 to 40 Agatha Christie books, which is less than half of her prodigious bibliography. 

But it's misleading to call Christie demanding or maybe even complicated.  Most of her books are probably at a middle-school reading level - I started reading her around age 12 and never had a problem.  During her peak (which is probably the entire decade of the 1930s) she was the biggest author of pulp fiction the world had ever seen.  Her mysteries aren't designed to be psychological thrillers or horror stories (though she wrote high-tension scenes often) and are usually semi-predictable whodunnits.  Christie almost never breaks the rules of fair play in detective fiction and she's an absolute expert of foreshadowing; trying to predict the killer is half the fun of reading a Christie novel, although my success rate is way below 50%. 

And then there are her characters and settings.  Christie's husband was an archaeologist, and together the Christies traveled the world before she settled into a writing career.  Most of her stories take place in the U.K. (and not usually in the city) but a few take place in exotic locales like Egypt and modern-day Iran.  Christie was British upper class, and her stories often portray servants and the wealthy at odds or even in caste in a way that feels dated.  Christie's heroes are never working-class hardboiled detectives, but unusually brilliant, charismatic sleuths like the foppish Belgian private eye Hercule Poirot or the kindhearted spinster Jane Marple, and are never portrayed in the first person.  All of Christie's books starring one of her signature detectives are either in third person or first person from a neutral party, most often Poirot's loyal friend Captain Hastings. 

So Agatha Christie novels don't feel modern, but they're almost always fun.  They're like watching an expert video game player absolutely slay a speed-run, or seeing a Rube Goldberg machine complete its task in a satisfying manner.  And Christie is always good at creating a sense of place, and her non-detective characters are usually ephemeral (I can think of maybe two who appear in more than one book), but memorable.  For all of the books listed below I vividly remember the killer and at least one or two less-important characters.  Christie has a way of creating living, breathing characters without wasting the reader's time, and it feels all the more shocking when one is murdered or is revealed to be a murderer. 

Now the list.  It's ten books, ranked in order of how much I like them, plus one important honorable mention.  I'm only considering the book versions of each of these stories and not film or television adaptations (although some are very good).  I'm going to avoid spoilers as best I can, even though a few of these are 90+ years old and are predicated on specific twists.  But that's more than enough intro, let's begin discussing a few of my favorite mystery novels of all time:

Sollosi's Top Ten Favorite Agatha Christie Books

Honorable Mention

Curtain: Poirot's Last Case

The backstory behind Curtain is maybe more interesting than the book itself: Christie wrote it during World War II, but kept the manuscript sealed in a safe for the rest of her life, and had it published as one of her final works shortly before she died in the 1970s.  Curtain ends with Hercule Poirot's obituary, but not before an elderly, wheelchair-bound Hercule brings a pretty diabolical killer to justice.  I don't think Curtain is one of the best Christie novels, but it delivers on shock value and provides a pretty cool sendoff to the greatest detective in literary history (sorry, Sherlock). 

Number Ten

Peril at End House

Maybe the most "boring" story in this list, Peril at End House has Poirot walk straight into a murder case before any murder occurs, hearing a story of multiple murder attempts and desiring to protect the intended victim.  The end result is a pretty intricate murder plot with a result that felt like a surprise but probably should've been obvious all along.  Really felt like ol' Agatha bamboozled me on this one, which makes me admire the book all the more.

Number Nine

Cards on the Table

Cards on the Table is about a bridge party with two simultaneous games: four murderers at one table and four detectives at the other.  When the party host dies, figuring out which killer is the *current* culprit becomes the story thrust, but uncovering the secret pasts of the four suspects and seeing four classic Christie detectives in action is what the book is really about.  Poirot even figures out the personalities of each suspect by how they play bridge, which is pretty dope.  This is my favorite book co-starring Ariadne Oliver, a bumbling crime novelist who forces herself into murder cases without being asked (Christie based Oliver on herself).  It's great seeing how much Oliver annoys Poirot, Race, and Battle, and Cards on the Table is probably one of Christie's funniest works.  And the murder mystery part is cool, too.   

Number Eight

Crooked House

Christie loves basing book titles off nursery rhymes and idioms, and this book is a great example of that title gimmick and also of two Christie classic themes: a wealthy, strange family torn apart by murder accusations (like After the Funeral or Hercule Poirot's Christmas), and a nice-but-clueless young man caught up in a romance trying to solve the case, but ultimately stumbling into the solution rather than solving the mystery (like Murder is Easy or The Moving Finger).  Crooked House has a pretty interesting mystery setup and likeable main characters, but the real deal is in the reveal.  The identity of the killer and the circumstances of the moment of truth are pretty wild, even for Christie. 

Number Seven

ABC Murders

Maybe the only "traditional" serial killer story Christie wrote, ABC Murders is a Poirot tale in which a murderer follows a specific pattern for his victims and taunts the detective by announcing each murder beforehand, and eventually suspicion centers on an eccentric salesman who suffers from blackout memory loss, compromising his own alibis.  There's a pretty great version of a classic Poirot reveal in this story (gather the suspects, reveal each one's secrets, announce the identity of murderer, watch the murderer break down in despair), but the real appeal is the serial killer fiction and Poirot clashing with a few truly clueless police characters.  They could probably make seven episodes of Criminal Minds from this book. 

Number Six

The Thirteen Problems

This is a collection of short stories, and the main reason why this is a list of "Agatha Christie Books" and not "Agatha Christie Novels."  Christie published these 13 Miss Marple shorts separately in short fiction publications, and later collected them in a single volume; you can also find the entirety of The Thirteen Problems in Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories and similar books.  Anyhow, my mother's ancient copy of these Miss Marple stories was the VERY first Christie book I had, and the stories are great.  Miss Marple stuns the other guests of a dinner party by flawlessly solving mystery puzzles presented by guests (actually two dinner parties plus one police investigation).  My favorites in the collection are "Death by Drowning" and "The Thumb-Mark of Saint Peter." The Thirteen Problems is a perfect encapsulation of Miss Marple's personality and genius, and a great baker's dozen of mystery short fiction. 

Number Five

Murder on the Orient Express

A large, interesting cast, a very cool story setup, and one of the most satisfying endings to any Christie story make Murder on the Orient Express a true classic.  Poirot never seems to be flustered, even when evidence is left in his room and suspects appear MORE guilty with every plot point instead of being eliminated from consideration.  The Sidney Lumet movie version is also probably the best screen adaptation of any Agatha Christie novel that I've seen.  One of Christie's most famous novels, and for very fair reasons. 

Number Four

A Murder Is Announced

My favorite Miss Marple story, and one of Christie's best overall.  Multiple murders in a tiny British hamlet, secret identities and red herrings, and larger-than-life characters (including an eastern-European servant whose portrayal feels a little racist).  The murder itself is a cool setup (it happens in full view of many witnesses as part of the story), and the clues sprinkled throughout made me do a double-take when I realized their true nature (avoiding spoilers here).  Marple's ability to make massive deductions from innocuous details and happenings from daily life in her own tiny village are beautiful to behold.  It's a detective gimmick that feels unique and somehow cute (?) even in 2018. 

Number Three

Five Little Pigs

Five Little Pigs has one of the most unique story structures of any Christie novel, with Poirot investigating a murder that occurred 16 years earlier, after hearing from the daughter of the convicted killer, who died in prison and left a letter to said daughter insisting she was innocent.  The novel is presented as a sequence of interviews conducted by Poirot and written accounts by the five suspects, and the different stories are pieced together by Poirot to determine the real truth, "Rashomon"-style.  It's a brilliant execution of an excellent concept (Christie wrote this in fucking 1942), and Poirot's final deduction is downright chilling. 

Number Two

And Then There Were None

Probably the most famous murder mystery in history that lacks a detective, and Christie's greatest use of dread and suspense in any of her novels, And Then There Were None is the story of ten suspects dying one by one, with the knowledge that the killer hides among them.  The story idea and the tension building rapidly are the hallmarks of this story, with the identity of the culprit almost an afterthought (but the final twist is pretty clever).  Amazingly, I think my first exposure to this story was in a Mathnet episode that gave me nightmares as a child.  Reading And Then There Were None years later was a hell of a lightning bolt to my brain.  But even without that personal context, this is one of Christie's most exciting books and is probably at the very top of many lists similar to this one. 

Number One

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

This book is the oldest on this list (1926, just before a few of the short stories in The Thirteen Problems) and as such its signature twist probably had more impact 92 years ago than it would to a reader today, and I dare not spoil it here.  Still, I think it's a perfect murder mystery.  Multiple suspects, each with something to hide, and Hercule Poirot revealing each secret in turn, clearing suspects one by one until the only solution remaining is something almost unthinkable.  I've read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd four or five times, and even knowing the ending in advance, seeing the seeds Christie plants throughout the story makes the whole thing more impressive.  Hercule Poirot always brags about his prodigious intelligence sealed within his "little gray cells," but his creator is the true genius. 

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So why didn't I include Death on the Nile, Murder at the Vicarage, or Endless Night?  Well, I don't think those are among Christie's best, even though they're so famous that I read *about* them before actually reading them.  "The Mousetrap" is in a similar situation, but is held back that it's a stage play adapted from single short story, and I've read the short story (which is pretty good) and haven't seen the play (which is one of the most successful plays in history).   But I stand by my list of ten as being my favorite Christie books, and don't hesitate to recommend any of them to fans of murder mysteries.

It was fun writing about literature for once!  But don't worry, next week I'll be back on my video games and superheroes bullshit.  And trust me, next week it'll be done in EXCEPTIONALLY poor taste.  I'm currently playing Tales of Berseria for fun and Shadows: Awakening for review, but I don't have a great idea of when I'll be finished with either.  Have a nice one!