A Few Thoughts on the Writings of Dorothy L. Sayers

As I begin this post, I've almost finished reading the 11th and final novel in Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey series of mystery novels, Busman's Honeymoon.

Although considerably fewer in number than the collection of Agatha Christie novels I read last year, it has taken me nearly the same amount of time to read these eleven.

As mystery novels, Sayers' work cannot compare with Christie's, - Sayers' books are simply not "page turners", although it seems to me that after the first few novels in the series, Sayers was attempting to write good novels - not good mystery novels, per se. I was particularly interested in the novels and writers mentioned in the Sayers' series. In several of the novels, Sayers mentions the name of Edgar Wallace. Wallace was unknown to me, but I've learned that he was a very popular writer of adventure novels and detective stories in his day. One of his best known works was his contribution to the creation of King Kong . Much of his work is in the public domain and I've downloaded quite a bit to be placed into the queue.

In Gaudy Night, the writer Sheridan Le Fanu is mentioned a few times. I've read two works by Le Fanu - Carmilla in 2015, and Uncle Silas in 2017. I've downloaded a few more of Le Fanu's work to be placed into the queue as well.

Also in Gaudy Night , Sayers mentions a book by C.P. Snow - The Search. I've managed to locate of number of Snow's work, although I couldn't locate a downloadable file for this particular novel.

In Busman's Honeymoon , Lord Wimsey's mother writes in her diary about her attempt to read a book entitled The Stars Look Down. :
"21 May.--Was reading The Stars Look Down (Mem. very depressing, and not what I expected from the title--think I must have had a Christmas carol in mind, but remember now it has something to do with the Holy Sepulchre--must ask Peter and make sure)".

According to wikipedia:
" The Stars Look Down is a 1935 novel by A. J. Cronin which chronicles various injustices in an English coal mining community. "

Fortunately, I was able to download The Stars Look Down and I've scheduled it to be my first read of December.

The October Reading List

As I write this, it is still October 30 and a bit early to be posting a monthly book list. I've started writing the post any way; the only thing that might change between now and then is that I may or may not finish the book I'm reading now. Of course, this can all be edited before posting

When I last posted here I was reading a book by Arab Israeli author Sayed Kashua - Second Person Singular. That novel uses Tolstoy's novella, The Kreutzer Sonata as a major plot device and frankly, I was more impressed by Kashua's novel than Tolstoy's novella.

During the first week of October, I was finally able to finish reading all of Agatha Christies mystery novels. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I went from there to read Anthony Burgess' The Enderby Quartet which I was able to read because I had discovered a website which had books still under copyright available for free download......like a virtual public library. It was this website that enabled me to download a number of books by Arthur C. Clarke in addition to the above mentioned novel by Sayed Kashua.

Thanks to that website, I've been able to download quite a few relatively recent books. One of those newly published books was To Rescue the Republic: Ulysses S. Grant, the Fragile Union, and the Crisis of 1876 by Bret Baier and Catherine Whitney. This book on U.S. Grant brought me back to Project Gutenberg to download Grant's two volume memoir. There was a break between Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 of the memoirs, due to my being unable to transfer Vol. 2 to my Kindle from my P.C. while my P.C. was in the shop.

Postern of Fate                    Agatha Christie
Curtain - Poirot's last case  Agatha Christie
Sleeping Murder                Agatha Christie
Hercule Poirot And The Greenshore Folly
Inside Mr Enderby            Anthony Burgess
Enderby Outside               Anthony Burgess
The Clockwork Testament  Anthony Burgess
Enderbys Dark Lady           Anthony Burgess
Childhood's End                 Arthur C. Clarke
Rendezvous With Rama     Arthur C Clarke
2001: A Space Odyssey     Arthur C. Clarke
2010: Odyssey Two           Arthur C. Clarke
The Kreutzer Sonata          Leo Tolstoy
Second Person Singular     Sayed Kashua
To Rescue the Republic     Bret Baier
Personal Memoirs Vol. 1    U.S.Grant
Dubliners                           James Joyce
Personal Memoirs Vol. 2    U.S.Grant

The Enderby Quartet

On October 5, I finally finished reading the last of Agatha Christie's mystery novels. I can't say I've read everything Christie wrote: the list does contain a few of her short story collections in addition to the novels, though there are a few more short stories I'm not going to read at this time. It's taken me since May 29th to read the 73 ebooks I've read.

Also, I haven't read any of the novels Christie published under the nom de plume Mary Westmacott.

Even while reading the Christie novels, my mind was on which direction I would go when I finished with Agatha Christie. In April of this year, my reading consisted of dystopian novels. One book which, naturally enough, made the list was A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. I thought I'd look into whatever other books I could find by Burgess, and read something written by him when I'd finished with Christie.

One group of novels written by Burgess which has received high praise is the, so-called Enderby Quartet, a set of four comic novels: Inside Mr Enderby, - Enderby Outside, -The Clockwork Testament, or Enderby's End, and Enderby's Dark Lady, or No End to Enderby. I found a website that allowed me to download several of Burgess' works and began reading the quartet.

As I write this, I've finished the first three novels in the series and have started # 4.

After reading the first two, it struck me odd that those books should be considered two, rather than one novel. I later came to find out that Burgess had originally planned these two to actually be just one novel. However, while working on what was to become Inside Enderby Burgess was told by a number of doctors that he would not be expected to live much longer. Burgess published the 1st "half" of the novel, not expecting to finish the 2nd "half". As it turned out, the doctors were wrong and Burgess lived for several more years.

Burgess' writing style with the quartet reminds me of William S. Burroughs, although I'd consider Burgess to be the superior writer.

In the first novel, the character Enderby uses an expression which I found confusing. When upset, Enderby would often say "for cough". It wasn't until after I had begun reading the 2nd novel that I realized that this was Burgess' response to censorship of the time. "For cough" was actually "fuck off" in much the same way Norman Mailer used "fuggin" in The Naked and the Dead. Apparently, literary censorhip had lightened up by the time of the 2nd novel. Although Enderby would continued to say "for cough", other characters in Enderby Outside say "fuck off" and "motherfucker".

In the third novel of the series, The Clockwork Testament, or Enderby's End Burgess seemed to predict the future that we're living in today.....politically correct pronouns and further censorship of words.

In the introduction of the final novel, Enderby's Dark Lady, or No End to Enderby Burgess explains that, although he had killed off Enderby in the 3rd novel, fans of the series convinced him to bring Enderby back to life. I haven't gotten far enough into the last book to see just how Burgess managed to do that.

The September Reading List

I'm posting the September reading list a bit late. No excuses. I suppose I could blame my tardiness on The Squid Game , but I could have managed to fit this post in with a little effort.

At any rate, the number of books read in September was below my normal average. I'm getting near the end of Agatha Christie novels and I'm just a wee bit burned out. When I've finished reading the novel I'm currently reading ( Postern of Fate ) I will have read the last novel she wrote - although I have three more to read which were written earlier but published afterward.....one not being published until 2014.

There are still a number of short story collections which I haven't read, though those may be put off until much later. There are also a number of works written by Christie under the nom de plume Mary Westmacott. I've only managed to find one of the Mary Westmacott novels available as a free e-book. That will probably be put off until later as well.

Here is the list of the 10 books I read in the month of September.

The Clocks
A Caribbean Mystery
At Bertram's Hotel
Third Girl
Endless Night
By the Pricking of My Thumbs
Hallowe'en Party
Passenger to Frankfurt
Nemesis
Elephants Can Remember

The August Reading List

For several years, posting a list of the books I've read during the year onto my sorryalltheclevernamesaretaken blog has been an annual event. When I began posting most of my doings to this blog, I posted the annual list for 2020 here as well.

Beginning in January, I began listing the books read on a monthly basis rather than annually.

In April, the list was made up by 15 dystopian novels.

In May, the list was rather small - with four novels by Anthony Trollope (whose novel The Fixed Period was the last dystopian novel of April) and two by Agatha Christie. Those two Christie novels was the beginning of a quest.

The book lists for June and July were made up entirely of novels by Agatha Christie. This list for August will likewise be of only Christie novels.

Counting the two Christie novels read in May, the total number of her novels (and collections) I've read to date is 58. With luck, I should be finished with Agatha Christie by the end of September.

So, here is the list of books I've read in August,

A Murder Is Announced
They Came to Baghdad
Mrs. McGinty's Dead
They Do It With Mirrors
After the Funeral
A Pocket Full of Rye
Destination Unknown
Hickory Dickory Dock
Dead Man's Folly
4:50 From Paddington
Ordeal by Innocence
Cat Among the Pigeons
The Pale Horse
The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side

The Pale Horse

Frankly, I was not expecting a great deal when Agatha Christie's The Pale Horse made its way to the front of the queue. After all, the novel does not feature either of my two favorite Christie characters, Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot. Another discouraging feature ( I felt) was the inclusion of witches, a séance, and things that go bump in the night. In the end, I was pleasantly surprised however.

The central character of the novel is an historian named Mark Easterbrook. The story comes together with Easterbrook as the protagonist; the story could not have worked with either Marple or Poirot. As it turns out, the murders have a more traditional cause - no spooks or ESP or anything supernatural. It's a not so simple case of poisoning. Thallium poisoning, to be precise.

Prior to this novel, I had never heard of thallium or thallium poisoning, although I've come to learn that prior to it being banned in the United States by Richard Nixon with a Presidential Executive Order in February 1972, thallium was widely used world wide as a poison for rodents. In the 1950's thallium found it's way into a number of mystery novels as a "poisoner's poison". In real life, also from the 1950's, there was an"Australian Thallium Craze" where several murderers used thallium as their poison of choice.

The Pale Horse is notable for having saved at least two lives after readers recognized the symptoms of thallium poisoning from its description in the book. In 1977, a 19-month-old infant from Qatar was suffering from a mysterious illness and brought to London. According to reports, a nurse by the name of Marsha Maitland recognized the symptoms of thallium poisoning from having read The Pale Horse  and the child was saved. In a case from Latin America, a woman had saved the life of a neighbor, also after having read the novel. I've found two different versions of the Latin American story. Wikipedia says "In 1975, Christie received a letter from a woman in Latin America who recognized the symptoms of thallium poisoning, thus saving a woman from slow poisoning by her husband". However, another source says it was the wife who was poisoning the husband. Interesting, either way.

Murder at the Gallop - After the Funeral

In the early 1960's, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced four films featuring Miss Marple, with Margaret Rutherford playing the lead in each film. The four films are, Murder, She Said - Murder at the Gallop - Murder Most Foul - and Murder Ahoy!. These films are only loosely based on Agatha Christie's books.

Murder, She Said is said to be based on 4.50 from Paddington. I'll put that film in the queue for a later date.

I'll also address Murder Most Foul- and Murder Ahoy! later as well. Murder at the Gallop is supposed to be based on Christie's After the Funeral and as I had just finished reading that novel, I went online to OK.RU to watch the film.

I've read that Agatha Christie didn't very often care for the film adaptations of her work - I'm sure that would have been especially true with Murder at the Gallop. I knew it would be disappointing when I had discovered that the film had replaced Hercule Poirot with Miss Marple. That was a big mistake. Very little of the novel's plot remains in the movie......pretty much unrecognizable.

As if to add further insult, Margaret Rutherford was the worst Miss Marple ever to make in to the screen. I have absolutely nothing good to say about Murder at the Gallop. I'm having difficulties imagining how the other 3 films in the series can be any worse. Avoid this film like COVID.

A Murder is Announced

Agatha Christie's Crooked House was the last novel to make it to July's Reading List. As I noted in an earlier post, Ms. Christie had written, in the foreword to that novel, that it was one of her favorites. Although I wouldn't put it as one of my all time favorites, I did enjoy the book.

As July turned to August, I began reading Christie's A Murder is Announced. This novel is part of the Miss Marple canon and I actually enjoyed it much more than A Crooked House .

According to wikipedia, this novel was promoted as Christie's 50th book. As I write this, A Murder is Announced. will be the 46th of her books read by me. There are four previous books, under the pen name Mary Westmacott which are not available at the website I use to download her books. Had I been able to find the Mary Westmacott novels, then I'd be at #50.

July's Reading List

 

Like my last reading list, posting the reading list for July will be, in some ways, easier than some earlier lists. As with June's list, there is only one writer to list - Agatha Christie. However, there is a noticeable difference in the number of her books read in July as compared to June. The number for July was 18 - down from the 24 read the previous month. I put the decline down to one reason - I found her "historical novel", Death Comes as the End especially tedious. I wanted to finish the novel once I had started, but it was such drudgery getting thru it that it took five days. I'm sure I could have gotten thru at least three of any of her other books in that length of time.

Be that as it may, here is the reading list for July, 2021.

Murder in the Mews
The Regatta Mystery
Parker Pyne Investigates
Murder is Easy
And Then There Were None
Sad Cypress
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
Evil Under the Sun
N or M ?
The Body in the Library
Five Little Pigs
The Moving Finger
Towards Zero
Death Comes as the End
Sparkling Cyanide
The Hollow
Taken at the Flood
Crooked House

Crooked House

In the Foreword to her mystery novel, Crooked House, Agatha Christie writes that of all she's written, this novel was one of her favorites. Having never heard of this novel before now, I wasn't quite sure how to take that statement.

However, after having read the novel, I have to agree with Ms. Christie. While I can hardly judge whether it is the best thing she had ever written, it is certainly very close to the top in my opinion.

Although my favorite Christie characters are nowhere to be found - no Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple - the novel was a great read. I don't understand why this novel isn't more well known among the general public or why it had never been made into a film until 2017. Of course, I wanted to watch the film before commenting on the novel.

Like every film ever adapted from a novel, there had to be changes made. That seems to be standard procedure in film making. There are changes in the film which aren't especially important to the story, so I'm not at all certain why these particular changes were made. One example is the change made regarding the two brothers, Phillip and Roger Leonides. In the novel, Roger is the older brother - in the film the birth order is switched. There doesn't appear to be any reason for that, as far as I can tell. In the novel, Brenda Leonides, the much younger widow of Aristide Leonides is British; in the film she is American. There's also an element of international intrigue in the film which isn't in the book.

Fortunately, the important elements of the story remains unchanged. The same people who are killed in the film are the same ones killed in the novel. The murderer is also the same.

Today, being the last day of July, it looks as if Crooked House will be the last item of July's reading list. The book list will appear in a later post. The Agatha Christie novel I began reading last night -(A Murder is Announced) will be the first book on the August reading list.

More Agatha Christie

I last wrote about an Agatha Christie novel two weeks ago, after I had finished reading Evil Under the Sun. In that two week, I've read seven additional Christie novels. This number is far below my usual quota since I've begun reading Ms. Christie's work.

One particular novel was especially tedious - Death Comes as the End.

Christie went off in a very strange and unusual direction with this book. The story takes place in Thebes in the year 2000 BC. Obviously, Christie had gained an appreciation for pre- Christian era Egypt due to her husband being an archaeologist, but unfortunately, this novel does not work for me. It's far and away my least favorite work by Agatha Christie.

Immediately upon finishing Death Comes as the End, I began reading Sparkling Cyanide. This one was more up my street, as the English say. I wasn't far into Sparkling Cyanide when it struck me that I had read this before. As it turns out, this novel was a reworking of one of her short stories, Yellow Iris. The plot takes a very different turn half-way through, and the endings are very different. Being more in line with Christie's usual work, this novel restored my faith in her after having read Death Comes as the End.

Evil Under the Sun

Having finished And Then There Were None a few days ago, I consulted the The Agatha Christie Bibliography to see which of her novels I needed to download and add to my Kindle. The next three, in order were Sad Cypress - One, Two, Buckle My Shoe and Evil Under the Sun . Thankfully, all three books featured Hercule Poirot and were quick, enjoyable reads.

Evil Under the Sun is the more famous of the three - I recall watching the 1982 film version starring Peter Ustinov, although I had forgotten many of the details. I found the movie at OK.RU and decided to watch it again before continuing on with my reading of Christie novels.

The film is reasonably faithful to the novel and I enjoyed watching it. Of course, film producers always seem to want to deviate from whatever book they've adapted. I don't really understand the point of changing a few characters or making alterations in the plot. Fortunately, the killer(s) remained the same.

Following Evil Under the Sun , the next in line is the 1941 mystery novel, N or M? . I wasn't enthusiastic about starting that particular book. The two main characters are Tommy and Tuppence and I haven't cared for any story in which they appeared. Added to that, the story is a World War II spy novel. I much prefer the old murder mystery.

I've gone ahead and started N or M? and honestly, I don't really care for it. I'll finish it, however, as I don't want to leave out any Agatha Christie novel I'm able to download.

And Then There Were None

Continuing in my quest to read the novels and short story collections of Agatha Christie, I've just finished reading And Then There Were None . Originally published in the U.K. in 1939 with the absolutely inappropriate title Ten Little Niggers , it has also appeared under a third name - Ten Little Indians . All three titles make reference to a children's counting song, which serves as a major element of the plot. In the edition I've just read, the song is given as Ten little Soldiers .

According to the wikipedia article linked to above, the novel is the world's best selling mystery with over 100 million copies sold and one of the top selling books of all time.

The ten people brought to the island are alleged by the mysterious "Mr. Owen" to have committed murders that have gone unpunished. Mr. Owen intends to rectify that.

Upon finishing the novel, I watched the 1945 film version at ok.ru. Without giving away any secrets, I want to compare the film version to the 1939 novel.

In many ways, the film follows the novel, although there are differences. In the film, the character Tony Marston is no longer English, but is a Russian prince, Nikita Starloff. The character Justice Wargrave was changed to Judge Francis J. Quincannon while the retired World War I hero, General MacArthur is given the new name, Gen. Sir John Mandrake. I suppose the General's name was changed in respect for Gen. Douglas MacArthur who played a prominent place in the news of 1945.

Among the better known stars of the film were Barry Fitzgerald as Judge Quincannon and Walter Huston as Dr. Armstrong.

In the novel, all ten of the individuals brought to Soldier Island are guilty. However, in the film, two of the people brought to Indian Island are innocent and manage to escape, thereby giving the film a "happy ending" which isn't in the novel. The mysterious "Mr. Owen" is the same person in the film and the novel, although the film version of his comeuppance is less complicated than it was in the book.

Parker Pyne Investigates

Although I'm a fan of the works Agatha Christie in general and her novels featuring Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot in particular, I had never come across her character Parker Pyne until recently when I began binge reading her novels and short story collections.

I'm not really sure what to make of Parker Pyne. He's not, strictly speaking, a detective. I hardly know how to classify the character. He advertises his services in the Personal section of the London Times - "ARE YOU HAPPY? IF NOT, CONSULT MR. PARKER PYNE. 17 Richmond Street."

People of all sorts come to Parker Pyne for a variety of reasons. Sometimes there may be a theft....once or twice there may have been a murder in this collection of short stories....but he's not at all like Poirot or Marple. Solving murder mysteries isn't his forte.

I was mildly interested in these 14 Parker Pyne stories, but toward the end, I was really longing for the finish.

In the original short story collection first published in the UK, there were 12 short stories. In this edition, two additional short stories - Problem at Pollensa Bay and The Regatta Mystery - were included. Fortunately, those two were also included in another Agatha Christie short story collection - The Regatta Mystery and other stories - which I had recently read, so I was able to skip those two this time.

I'll be going back to the novels. The next two in the queue are Murder is Easy and And Then There Were None, neither of which feature either of my two favorite Christie characters.

The Reading List for June

In one way, posting a list of the books I've read in the month of June is less complicated than in previous months. I only have to list one writer for the month - Agatha Christie. The only complication would be in the number of her books I read in June.

I've mentioned in earlier posts that very few of Agatha Christie's work is in the public domain and available at Project Gutenberg. Fortunately, for Christie fans, nearly all of her books are available to download as EPUB at Internet Archive. Of course, most commercial e-readers (including Kindle) cannot read EPUB files. However, there are websites which will convert the EPUB files to MOBI free of charge. Using those various sites, and the Christie bibliography, I've been able to read these ebooks in pretty much the order in which they were published. Sadly, the Internet Archive does not contain the works written by Christie under the nom de plume - Mary Westmacott.

Agatha Christie's novels are not particularly long; many being 200 pages or less. Most of the novels are "page turners" and one can usually read two of her books in two or three days. In June, I managed to read 24 of her books. Oddly enough, going in the order of publication, only 2 of those 24 books featured Miss Marple. It looks as though I'll be reading more of Agatha Christie's books in July, if I want to read Marple.

Now, for the list.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Poirot Investigates
The Big Four
The Man in the Brown Suit
The Secret of Chimneys
The Mystery of the Blue Train
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Seven Dials Mystery
The Murder at the Vicarage
The Sittaford Mystery
Peril at End House
Lord Edgware Dies
Murder on the Orient Express
Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
Three Act Tragedy
Death in the Clouds
The A.B.C. Murders
Murder in Mesopotamia
Cards on the Table
Dumb Witness
Death on the Nile
Appointment With Death
Hercule Poirot's Christmas
The Thirteen Problems

Literary References

 

I find it interesting, while reading a work of fiction, to come upon the name of another author or the mentioning of a book that one of the characters in the fictional work has read or is reading. I find it of particular interest if I'm familiar with the book mentioned.

One example is in a work of Agatha Christie which I've just finished, Death on the Nile . In the novel, Christie notes that one characters has a copy of Erewhon by Samuel Butler. Erewhon was one of the dystopian novels I read this past April.

Another example is from the Christie novel I've just began reading last night - Appointment with Death.  In the very opening of the novel, Hercule Poirot overhears a bit of conversation which reminds him of a story he once heard concerning the writer, Anthony Trollope. According to this story, Trollope was crossing the Atlantic at the time, and overheard two passengers discussing the last published installment of one of his novels.

"Very good", one man said, "but he ought to kill off that tiresome old woman".
Trollope was said to have told the men,
"Gentlemen, I am much obliged to you! I will go and kill her immediately!"

There is no mention of which Trollope novel was being referred to. I spent a good deal of time in April reading Trollope's Chronicles of Barsetshire ; I don't know if the reference is to one of those novels. If it is, I suspect the "tiresome old woman" might have been the wife of Bishop Proudie.

I suppose I'll never really know for certain.

Why Didn't They Ask Evans?

Upon finishing Murder on the Orient Express , I immediately consulted the Agatha Christie bibliography to find my next book. I discovered, Why Didn't They Ask Evans? . For me, a more proper title might have been, Why Did I Bother to Read This Book?

This is far and away the strangest, most bizarre Agatha Christie novel I've read to date. The amazing thing is that when it was published in 1934, the book received glowing reviews. That is the greater mystery.

Often times Christie would come up with an off the wall ending to her mystery novel. She outdid herself in offthewalledness with Why Didn't They Ask Evans? . Had this been my first exposure to the work of Agatha Christie, I would not have read anything else written by her. I really can't say enough about how much I disliked this book.

Murder on the Orient Express

At the half-way point of my month of reading the works of Agatha Christie, I've just finished reading one of her more famous books, Murder on the Orient Express. Of course, I've watched film and television adaptations of the novel - although it's been several years.

It has been so long, in fact, I had forgotten most of the details of the story. Once I had begun reading, however, most of the plot came back to me, even though certain details remained forgotten.

I had not realized that the novel was "inspired" by the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh's son in 1932. I had not put 2 and 2 together, but it would have been evident to the readers of the book in 1934 when it was first published. Seems a bit exploitative to me. 

Be that as it may, it was worth the time I put in reading the e-book.

The Agatha Christie Bibliography

 

When I began my quest to read the works of Agatha Christie, I decided to read the novels in the order they were published. I've managed to do that - more or less. To facilitate the process, I've followed the Agatha Christie bibliography as posted on Wikipedia.

Having finished The Murder at the Vicarage , I checked the bibliography for the next novel - Giant's Bread - which Christie wrote under the nom de plume, Mary Westmacott. I immediately went to the website where I fetch my Christie novels as EPUB and discovered that the works of Mary Westmacott are not included. I've been unable to locate any Mary Westmacott novels for free download.

Next on the list came The Floating Admiral . This was a collaborative detective novel written by fourteen members of the Detection Club in 1931. Unfortunately, this isn't available in the Agatha Christie collection were I obtain my efiles.

It's been my habit to download the files in groups of three. The next three on the list are The Sittaford Mystery, Peril at End House and Lord Edgware Dies . The last two are in the Hercule Poirot canon. I finished reading The Sittaford Mystery last night and will proceed to Peril at End House later today.

I did not realize at first that the Agatha Christie bibliography on the Wikipedia page lists the novels and short story collections separately. Accordingly, I should have read the short story collections, Partners in Crime and The Mysterious Mr Quin before The Murder at the Vicarage. As neither of those collections include my favorites - Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot - and as I have already uploaded the next three novels to my Kindle, I will read those three before dealing with the two short story collections.

The Murder at the Vicarage

I've finally reached the point, in my quest to immerse myself in the works of Agatha Christie , to where I've gotten to the first novel featuring Miss Marple - The Murder at the Vicarage. Until recently, my exposure to works featuring Miss Marple (and Hercule Poirot) has been through movies and television only. As I write this, The Murder at the Vicarage. is the 11th Agatha Christie novel I've read.

I've found that I'm not as fond of her novels which do not feature either Marple or Poirot. I'll continue to read those, of course. As much as I love the Poirot character, I'm putting The Murder at the Vicarage as my favorite, so far. I'm taking into account the fact that the ending of the first Miss Marple novel has similarities to the ending of the first Hercule Poirot novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

It never ceases to amaze me that I'm always surprised when the killer is revealed in an Agatha Christie novel. I can never predict who he or she will turn out to be in the end.

The novel was adapted twice for British television. Once in December 1986, with Joan Hickson as Miss Marple and a second time in 2004 with Geraldine McEwan in the leading role. It's quite possible that I've watched both, but that would have been ages ago. Neither helped me solve the mystery in the novel.