It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: The Thirteen Problems | 1932

(image from here)

"'I know human nature,' said Miss Marple. 'It's impossible not to know human nature living in a village all these years.'" -The Thirteen Problems, p. 198

The Sum of It:

As a helpless mystery nerd, I cannot think of a more pleasant way to pass an evening than to get a small group of good friends together, put on a pot of tea, and try to deduce "unsolved mysteries." That is the premise of our first read of this week, The Thirteen Problems  or, as it's know in the US, The Tuesday Club Murders (as a note, I purchased the UK version of this book, so that is why I refer to it by its UK name.) 

The Thirteen Problems is a collection of short stories which were originally published in monthly fiction magazines starting in 1927, and were then published as a collection in 1932. Thirteen Problems is the world's first introduction to Agatha's second famous sleuth: Miss Jane Marple. Agatha wrote Miss Marple with her own grandmother in mind, and her description is decidedly matronly (think Dowager Countess #downtonabbey): black brocade dress, snowy white hair, constant knitting, etc. In Thirteen Problems we also meet some other Miss Marple regulars: her playboy-ish, famous author nephew Raymond West, Miss Marple's ex-Scotland Yard bestie Sir Henry Clithering, and the country couple to Miss Marple's third wheel from later novels, Colonel and Dolly Bantry. 

In Thirteen Problems, Miss Marple is at first seen as a background observer (muttering to herself as she counts her knitting stitches) to a group game of Raymond, Sir Henry, and a few others as they each present a sort of cold case they observed or heard about from their past, with the idea that their brain powers combined can deduce the culprit. However, it's unassuming Miss Marple who schools everyone with the correct solution every time (#madrespect #yaskween). The second half of the book features Sir Henry and Miss Marple at a house party together sometime later with the Bantrys and a few other guests, and they try the game again...with Miss Marple 6 for 6 by the end of it. 

Here's what I love about The Thirteen Problems: the short chapters make for a fun, easy read, with the guaranteed satisfaction of a solution every 20-odd pages. But more than that, the mysteries are clever and hint at some ideas Agatha implemented in her longer novels in the future. My personal two favorite stories are: 

Murder vs. Opportunity: a dying man makes a drastic change to his will shortly before his death in full sight of his lawyer, and yet when the new will is taken from its sealed envelope to be read, it is found to be a blank sheet of paper! However, those suspects who had a motive for swapping out the will had no opportunity to do so, and those who had an opportunity had no motive! #MYSTERY

The Herb of Death: Sweet Dolly Bantry wants to participate with a story from her past, but is embarrassed about telling it as well as the others, so she gives the bare bone facts and then has everyone grill her 20 Questions-style for more details. 

The YOA Treatment:

With the character of Miss Jane Marple, Agatha gives the reader yet another sleuthing style. Hercule Poirot has his order and logic method -- "the little grey cells," Tommy & Tuppence follow the paths they find in their favorite books, while Miss Marple relies heavily on her knowledge of the human nature. After being presented with the facts of a case, Miss Marple never fails to chime in with a story of someone back home in her village (#StMaryMead) that seems completely unrelated...until she presents her solution of the crime.

In her autobiography, Agatha gives some great insight into the influence her grandmother had on the character of Miss Marple. Agatha says of her grandmother: "though a cheerful person, she always expected the worst of everyone and everything, and was, with almost frightening accuracy, usually proved right. 'A downy fellow, that - I don't trust him,' Grannie would remark, and when later a polite young bank clerk was found to have embezzled some money, she was not at all surprised, but merely nodded her head." Like Grannie, Miss Marple doesn't need to take out her tweezers, collect overcoat fibers, or take extensive notes to solve crimes. She just goes with her first gut reaction, and trusts in her many years of experience with ordinary people behaving in ordinary ways. And she never fails to catch the killer actin just like she knew they would #playersgonnaplay. 

When You Don't Know Where to Start | EPIC LISTS!

When we started getting ready for this project last fall, the first thing we did was sit down and figure out exactly how many books we were going to be reading and in which order we should read them. Now, of course we could have just turned to the good old Google machine to look up a list of Agatha's works, but it's loads more fun to have them in a handy-dandy list format with a checklist and everything (#checklistsrule).

AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT, our ever-favorite agathachristie.com has sorted all of Dame Agatha's works into just such terrifically organized lists! We have been using The Complete Agatha Christie Reading List as our guide for The Year of Agatha project, but you can also find helpful lists (including publication dates) of all Poirot and Miss Marple books on their site. The Poirot list is particularly interesting because it gives some fairly cryptic and intriguing suggestions about the reading order of several books - for example, it is suggested Lord Edgware Dies be read before After the Funeral...I'm sure we will give you some clues as to why when we get to those books later this year!

And so, dear readers, if our blog has piqued your interest in Agatha's works and should you find yourself needing to know (or simply curious about!) which books you'll need to add to your "Every Miss Marple Book" Amazon Wish List, may we heartily recommend the above mentioned resources! AND if you are interested in which books are coming up in February on The Year of Agatha, we have added next month's reads to our Reading Schedule.

-A. & E.

Isn't it Romantic: The Man in the Brown Suit | 1924

"I would put all my eggs in one basket. 'First class,' I said. I was now definitely committed to the adventure." - The Man in the Brown Suit, p. 46

Ok, guys, first of all this was a new Agatha story for me, and it's now in my top five. There's something fresh and sprightly about these early stories where the main character (in this case, narrator) is a plucky young girl whose curiosity and yen for romance and adventure gets the better of any sense of practicality. Agatha does such a nice job of creating these clever girls who remind me of no one so much as Clara Oswald from Doctor Who: the smartest, most charming, and cutest girl in the room but no one can help but like her anyway #soufflegirl. More on that later. FIRST:

The Sum of It All: 
PROLOGUE: This book begins with two fake Russians in the dressing room of a Paris theater. The lady reveals not only that she's actually South African (and apparently quite the master of accents), but also that she has figured out a way to double-cross the criminal mastermind who employs them both; the nameless but frightful "Colonel." The double cross involves two different sets of raw South African diamonds, one of which was used to frame two young men for theft, and simultaneously utilized by the lady as insurance against the "Colonel." In reality the two Cambridge grads youthfully trekking through the wilds of South Africa had discovered a new diamond mine, but after betrayal by this faux-Russian hussy, were arrested, disgraced, and evidently killed in WWI.

THE STORY: Next we meet our story's narrator, Anne Beddingfeld, who has to the point of the story's action grown up in a little village in the English country tending to the practical aspects of life for her eccentric father, a professor and "one of England's greatest living experts on Paleolithic man." Her life had been pretty quiet and filled mainly with bearded, elderly professors, Anne's desire for romance and adventure fulfilled only by regular cinematic installments of a serial drama, "The Perils of Pamela," whom Anne describes as always falling out of airplanes and climbing sky scrapers "without turning a hair." Anne's father passes away and suddenly she realizes her life is her own and wouldn't she like to do something with it. In London, she witnesses a man on a tube platform make eye contact with someone behind her who struck so much fear in the man's heart that he stepped back and fell to his death on the live track. When a strange man claims to be a doctor, declares the man dead, then hurries off, dropping a stolen slip of paper cryptically printed with "1 7 . 1 2 2 Kilmorden Castle", Anne realizes the slip of paper she collects on the platform is her ticket to adventure.

Anne's determination to figure out what scared the dead man, what the cryptic message meant, and who killed a mysterious foreign lady in an estate let to rent on the Thames known as Mill House all put her on a ship bound to South Africa. Aboard the ship the intrigue compounds as Anne befriends a delightful socialite, a mysterious Secret Service man, a crochety old English millionaire (who I was troubled/pleased to realize is me in another life), and a reckless, handsome, kind of angry stranger. She also interacts with some ship's stewards, a potential crossdresser, and a man with the face of an undertaker.

ONCE AGAIN this summary is cut short before we even get to the middle because that's where the surprises and suspicions start but suffice it to say Anne and her new socialite friend, Suzanne Blair, decide to solve the mystery on their own, travel to the jungles of South Africa, buy a bunch of carved wooden animals, see a magnificent waterfall, get kidnapped more than once, and Anne falls recklessly, dramatically, in love with a man who insists he is trouble and she is too good for him and tells her she MUST go back to England and then literally the next day after rescuing her from NEARLY CERTAIN DEATH exclaims "My God! Anne, if you ever marry anyone else but me, I'll wring his neck!" (They spend some time arguing/falling in love Cary Grant/Katherine Hepburn-in-Bringing-Up-Baby-style on an island surrounded by crocodiles before actually running for their lives: " 'There speaks a foolish school girl.' 'I'm not a foolish schoolgirl,' I cried indignantly. 'I'm a woman.' 'God help me, so you are,' he muttered..." It's adorable.) And ONCE AGAIN there are some surprises at the end that had me exclaiming aloud with surprise even though I was SURE I had this one alllll figured out, dadgum, Agatha!

Actual Agatha Christie surfing in Honolulu (from here)

The YOA Treatment:
AGATHA IRL: I could write for days about this one. It really is so great. For one thing, this is a story that draws quite a bit from Agatha's actual life. One of the main characters is based on a friend and employer of her first husband, Archie (#teamMax). She and Archie traveled with this man, Mr. Belcher, for a year around the world on trade missions, a seminal experience in Agatha's life, and she dedicated the book to him. In the course of the journey, Mr. Belcher gave Agatha the idea for the story, and insisted on having a primary character modeled after himself.

The travels with Mr. Belcher, in addition to sparking the story's genesis and a main character, also provided a good bit of the setting, with Agatha lending Anne some of her own first impressions of South Africa, including a terrible sea-sickness to begin the journey (from which she was certain she should never recover #deckchairs), the beauty of the flat Table Mountain upon entering the bay at Capetown, and the fascinating geography of the African continent. Agatha even lent Anne another of her singular experiences from this round-the-world trip: the glorious victory of successfully riding an ocean wave on a surfboard. Agatha and Archie were said to be some of the first English to surf in Honolulu, and Agatha preserved this proud memory in Anne's South African experience.

STYLE: As with another favorite Agatha story (Endless Night, way down the line from here) this book offers first person, and potentially unreliable, narrators, an aspect that I think makes these stories predecessors for popular current crime mysteries like The Girl on the Train. That grabs me immediately, especially if the narrator is charming, which Anne and the second narrator are. Another thing about this book that I think has been imitated over and over, but more recently in the Showtime series The Affair, is the telling of the same story from more than one perspective, which provides a really intriguing path through the action and gives the mind a bit more to do.

LADIES: I also must once again praise Agatha's ability to write these delightfully strong female characters. As we've noted before, and as we'll see in a number of other books, Agatha tends to write a lady who can keep her composure and take charge of a situation with grace and a sense of humor, as opposed to some wilting damsel in distress. Anne has a few options for a confidant once she realizes she might be in a little over her head, and considers them all before selecting a female compatriot. Somewhere along the way, Anne realizes that in addition to the excitement of solving a mystery, she has another reason to get to the bottom of things: proving the innocence of a man she can't help but trust. Nevertheless, Anne insists nearly all the way through the adventure, til she is sure who else is on their side and who is not so that a team may be formed, that she and her socialite pal will be the ones making clever deductions and calling the shots, even when her friend gets cold feet and wants to bring a strong, silent fella in on the action:

"I objected vigorously to this unsporting proposal. I recognized in it the disastrous effects of matrimony. How often have I not heard a perfectly intelligent female say, in the tone of one clinching an argument, "Edgar says--" And all the time you are perfectly aware that Edgar is a perfect fool. Suzanne, by reason of her married state, was yearning to lean upon some man or other."

She and Suzanne sort out the friends and foes and hatch an ingenious plan, ultimately banding together with the fellas they trust at the very last minute. Throughout, Anne faces terrifying situations with pluck and quick wits, and Suzanne uses her own charm and smarts to put plans in motion and persuade enemies to act as friends without their even realizing it.

Though Anne decides she doesn't really need a man to help her solve a mystery, or generally, she accidentally finds one she can't live without and then realizes that her own love story is more than quite inextricably linked with her adventure -- more than a little autobiographical of the early years of Agatha's own marriage.

-E.

(image from here)

The Angle of Attack: The Sittaford Mystery | 1931

(image found here)

"'This young gentleman that the police are holding on account of the murder, it's my belief that he's the one she's set on. And she's come up here to nose about and see what she can find out. And mark my words,' said Mrs. Curtis, rattling china, 'if there's anything to find out she will find it!'" 

- The Sittaford Mystery, p. 111

The Sum of It:

I could not have picked a better week to read this book. We don't often see much snow here in Southern Tennessee, so when we do it is a BIG DEAL. So it was with gentle snowflakes falling that I set about reading the first and most blizzardy of this week's Agathas: The Sittaford Mystery (note: this book is, like several of Agatha's novels, known by a different name in the UK: The Murder at Hazelmoor.)

A hefty snowstorm plays a huge role in this 1931 mystery. A group of neighbors in a tiny village get together one snowy evening for tasty treats and other parlor merriment. Having blown through all other entertainment options, the eclectic bunch decides on table turning (aka 1931 Ouija board). In the course of events, the group receives a message from the spirits that local grumpy old man (and crossword puzzle enthusiast) Captain Trevelyan has been MURDERED. Although not everyone is convinced of the veracity of these "spirit" claims, Captain Trevelyan's bestie, Major Burnaby, rushes out to trudge several miles in the blizzard to check on his pal - just in case. Alas, Captain Trevelyan is in fact super dead (#deathbysandbag) in his cottage home, and was apparently killed at the time of the group received the mysterious message. Turns out that Captain Trevelyan was super stingy with money (thus having hoarded quite a bit of it by the time he died) and, having a very girls-are-gross attitude due to a jilting as a young man, doesn't have any immediate family members who benefit from his death. He does, however, have a sister and several nieces and nephews, one of whom decided to go and pay his uncle a fairly abrasive visit on the day of Trevelyan's death. And so said nephew Jim Pearson is carted off to jail as the police's number one suspect in the case.

Perhaps by 1931 Agatha had not yet fully established her own writing patterns, so for that or some other reason this book is oddly devoid of any of the regular Agatha Christie sleuths, featuring instead the police work of Inspector Narracott, a smart, quiet guy who spends a great deal of the first third of the book methodically interviewing the village's sparse population. However, Narracott is not the only person working to solve this crime. Determined to see her beloved, but not terribly bright, fiancee cleared of the crime, the plucky, charming, and (I have no doubt) 100% fashionista Emily Trefusis shows up to do some detective work of her own. Emily teams up with cute young reporter Charles Enderby (dare I tease #lovetriangle) and what ensues is a whole lot of witty banter, red herrings, and, at the heart of it, a desire to make sure the right man is put away.

The YOA Treatment: 

(image from here)

I, like many, many others, have become a huge fan of popular real crime stories like those told in the Serial podcast or the Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer. It has been so fascinating to see in both of those cases how the listeners/viewers have turned into "vigilante investigators" and have, in both instances, found or reinterpreted evidence that was missed by the initial police investigation. People across the world who listened to the Serial podcast took Adnan Syed's case seriously enough to seek legal documents, further testimony, and launch their own efforts to seek another evaluation of the case. The Making a Murderer documentary series has resulted in serious calls to the Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, for a pardon for the series subject Steven Avery.

Though Agatha clearly respected the role of a true sleuth like Poirot, she demonstrated a real penchant for the vigilante investigator in a number of her books. We see this same kind of non-official-police investigation in Sittaford through the efforts of Emily and Charles (as well as in Monday's book, 1924's The Man in the Brown Suit), and even in the nature of Tommy & Tuppence Beresford, who appear in several stories, and one of Agatha's most famous characters, the amateur sleuth Miss Jane Marple. Emily talks a lot in Sittaford about wanting to provide a different "angle of attack" on the case - and that's exactly what she does although (obvi) without the use of the Internet.

Agatha wrote from what she knew, whether settings, characters, or even plot points. In her days touring the world, spending time with friends as a young lady in Torquay, working with other amateur pharmacists and nurses in wartime dispensaries, and even admiring her older sister Madge's cleverness, Agatha developed a healthy respect for what an ordinary person could accomplish. Her characters prove this over and over, and the Sittaford Mystery is an excellent early example of what a vigilante sleuth, pulled from everyday life, could do.

-A.

The Essence of Agatha Christie: Writing (A VIDEO!)

We've been doing lots of research on Agatha and her books for this project (duh), and one of the best and most delightful spots to spend an hour (or so...) in an Internet rabbit hole is the official site of the Agatha Christie Trust (aptly housed at agathachristie.com), which is managed by Agatha's only and blessed grandson, Mathew Prichard. 

One of the most interesting things we've been considering is how the untrained Agatha got so good at her craft, and what her creative process was like (especially since we're hoping to wrap it up by taking a stab (get it?) at mystery fiction ourselves). When we came across this video, a quick intro to Agatha's notebooks and writing process by said grandson, we loved it and wanted to share it with you guys! 

Be sure to visit The Year of Agatha again on Saturday (January 23) for our recap of The Sittaford Mystery and Monday (January 25) for The Man in the Brown Suit.

-A. & E.

All the Cloaks and All the Daggers: The Big Four | 1927

(image from here)

"It is a duel to the death, mon ami. You and I on the one side, the Big Four on the other. They have won the first trick; but they have failed in their plan to get me out of the way, and in the future they have to reckon with Hercule Poirot!" - The Big Four, p. 16

The Sum of It:

So you know that thing where you go to see the latest James Bond movie and it's all spy-ish and everyone is constantly dressed in evening wear and you're like yeah, I could be a spy? Well it seems like maybe Agatha Christie had that same feeling right before writing The Big Four. This third Agatha novel featuring Hercule Poirot and his ever faithful sidekick, Arthur Hastings, takes the air of adventure we were introduced to in The Secret Adversary to a WHOLE NEW LEVEL. I mean, look at the different cover art this book has had over the years - they are very Bond-esque.

   

(images found here, here, and here)

The Big Four begins with a sort of Gift of the Magi situation with fairly-newly-married Hastings making the long journey back to England from The Argentine (where apparently he has turned cattle farmer since the end of The Murder on the Links). He is super stoked to surprise his bestie, and shows up at Poirot's door only to see a pile of suitcases because OF COURSE Poirot was already on his way to South America to visit Hastings AT THE SAME TIME. Hastings is like okay great to let's just hang in England because I'm already here, but Poirot is like nope, sorry I just got offered an enormous amount of money by an American bajillionaire to go and investigate some "hocus pocus" in Rio so how about you drop me off at the station. However, as they are literally walking out the door for the train station, a man staggers into Poirot's apartment, scribbles the number 4 all over some paper, and then promptly DIES. (Hastings suggests perhaps he has "brain fever" - Poirot says uh no, you are not a doctor, Hastings.)

Thus begins a truly epic 198 pages of twists and turns as Poirot and Hastings literally put themselves in harm's way to get to the bottom of an international crime ring known as the Big Four. This book reads almost like a collection of mini cases with Poirot and Hastings investigating basically half a dozen murders, all seemingly unconnected...until Poirot finds that one little clue that links the death to the mysterious Big Four. 

Winners:

Stunts: In The Big Four, Poirot and Hastings jump out of a moving train, get into fist fights with thugs, are kidnapped NUMEROUS times, and escape from a country home by climbing down ivy from an upstairs window! 

Hastings: While still self-admittedly several steps behind Poirot for most of the book, Hastings does have a few shining moments, even receiving some kudos from Poirot himself: "How marvelous is my friend Hastings! He knows everything -- but everything! How do they say -- Inquire Within Upon Everything. That is my friend Hastings."

Losers:

English Coffee: Apparently, it is not to Poirot's liking. "Only in England is the coffee so atrocious. On the continent they understand how important it is for the digestion that it should be properly made."

#hastingsinlove: Poor Hastings. Even happily married, he can't help himself wistfully remarking how pretty girls are (sometimes based solely on their name), particularly if their hair is a "delicate shade of auburn." Poirot shamelessly calls him out: "Always looking for romance! You are incorrigible!"

The YOA Treatment:

Poirot makes a thoughtful observation about his friend Hastings in this book: "Your narrative style is masterly. I say to myself, it is a book that talks, not my friend Hastings." Hastings is our window into Poirot's world, giving the reader the perfect person to connect with, for not all of us possess the little grey cells of the Hercule Poirot! 

Without Hastings, Poirot's remarkable genius might feel too unrealistic, too uncanny to make much sense. But Hastings offers the foil that both reveals Poirot's brilliance and ensures that the reader doesn't feel alone in being a step or two behind the best. 

Agatha is obviously not the only mystery writer to employ the not-as-clever-but-good-at-writing-things-down friend as a narrator. Another obvious example is Dr. John Watson's narration of the Sherlock Holmes cases. Like Hastings, Dr. Watson serves as a conduit for the eccentric Holmes's methods to the reader, giving us the facts, and yet also not afraid to pose questions to the famous sleuth, so that both companion and reader can keep up. In her autobiography, Agatha notes the influence of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as she created her own characters and story structures, and in Hastings is perhaps the clearest example. Seeing Poirot's cases through Hastings's eyes is a delight, not only because of the often hilarious exchanges between these two unlikely friends, but also because Hastings's reactions as events unfold are our reactions, particularly in The Big Four, where Poirot is often keeping Hastings in the dark of his clever plans to outwit the villains. 

-A.

Less Golf Than You'd Think: The Murder on the Links | 1923

"The trained observer, the expert, without doubt he is useful! But the others, the Hercules Poirots, they are above the experts! To them the experts bring the facts, their business is the method of the crime, its logical deduction, the proper sequence and order of the facts; above all, the true psychology of the case." - The Murder on the Links, p. 14

The Sum of it All:

This, Agatha's third published book, begins with Hastings (Poirot's sidekick, you'll remember from Styles) in his natural habitat: falling in love with some random girl he's known for five minutes. Not only does she literally appear out of nowhere, but she claims to be an actress, Hastings criticizes her cosmetics, she tells him her temper has gotten her into trouble in the past, and she refuses to tell him her real name and tells him to call her Cinderella. So I mean the falling in love was a foregone conclusion in Hastings' case. (They meet again later and Hastings and Poirot have the following exchange: "Journeys end in lovers' meetings is not that the saying?" "Don't be an ass, Poirot." "Yesterday it was Mademoiselle Daubreuil, today it is Mademoiselle--Cinderella! Decidedly you have the heart of a Turk, Hastings! You should establish a harem!" #mocking #hastingsinlove)

Anyhow, he meets her on his way to London from France, and when he gets there, his now roommate Papa Poirot is bemoaning his toast ("'This piece of toast, you remark him not? Is it square? No. Is it a triangle? Again no. Is it even round? No. Is it of any shape remotely pleasing to the eye? What symmetry have we here? None.' 'It's cut from a cottage loaf,' I explained soothingly") as well as the boring nature of his recent detective cases ("In verity I am reduced to recovering lost lap-dogs for fashionable ladies!"). This problem is soon alleviated by the receipt of a urgent letter from an M. Renauld in France stating that he fears he is in danger and needs Poirot to come STAT. So they go. 

ALAS they are too late and when they get there they find that M. Renauld is already MURDERED via a knife in the back, wearing his underclothes and a coat that's too long for him, laying in a pre-dug grave in the midst of a golf course in development next to his Villa. But why is he in his underclothes and why is the door to his house standing open, his wife inside all bound and gagged, telling a wild story about two Chileans with beards? Unfortunately, the French police are already on it, and with them, their star detective, Giraud, who quickly becomes Poirot's nemesis due to his more observational crime solving methods: "Here we have a true clue--a psychological clue. You may know all about cigarettes and match ends, M. Giraud, but I, Hercule Poirot, know the mind of man!"

We also find the recurring theme of the presence of a SURPRISE second will, which switches all the money to Renauld's wife, leaving a son out in the cold. Speaking of the son, he turns up claiming to have been in a totally different city waiting on a ship to South America upon telegramed orders from his Pa, returning when his ship was cancelled...a likely story? He and his father had a heated blow-up the day of his dad's death, all about a beautiful young lady down the lane about whom his dad said NO DICE re: marriage. Poirot meets the young lady and her mother who reminds Poirot of a crime popular in the news long ago. When a second body turns up, things get even more interesting. 

This is the part where I stop explaining the plot because part of the goal here is for you guys, our small but faithful (one hopes) cadre of readers to be inspired by our tantalizing leads and pick up a copy of the book for your own enjoyment! Needless to say, this one has more than one significant twist at the end, and you'll think you have it figured out more than once before it's all over (literally, one of my margin notes is "Whaaaaaat!").

Simon Baker owes it all to Agatha, probably.

The YOA Treatment: 

With this second Poirot book, Agatha makes a point of establishing the difference between him and the more "conventional" detective, a contrast she casts in the form of Giraud. Giraud is showier than Poirot, crawling about on the ground looking for shoe-prints and distinguishing South American matches. Hastings is disappointed in Poirot for letting this guy seemingly get the jump on him constantly with his quickly drawn conclusions, but Poirot is unruffled. 

"He builds a case, as a beaver builds a dam, with a fatiguing industry. But he will not have looked for the things I am seeking--in all probability he would not have seen their importance if they stared him in the face." 

The police, doctors, and M. Giraud move happily along, taking each evident clue at face value, and drawing rapid conclusions, while we see that Poirot is willing to look deeply at each piece of evidence and examine them from multiple angles. While Poirot is methodical always in his thinking, taking each clue and piece of evidence and considering how it fits with the others, then forming a narrative, we see the other detective using initial evidence to form a narrative, and then ditching anything that doesn't fit. Says Poirot, "Always the facts must be twisted to fit the theory! Did not Giraud find the traces of two persons, a man and a woman, in the shed? And how does that fit in with his reconstruction of the case? I will tell you--it does not fit in, and so we shall hear no more of them!"

This contrasting style of detecting remains present in today's popular detective realm, whether we're looking at the standard (yet great, nobody's tryin' to denegrate the bom-bom) crime procedurals of the Law & Order empire, where clue after clue leads Det. Olivia Benson to the real bad guy, or the clever, intuition based skills of crime solvers like Patrick Jane's Mentalist or Shawn Spencer on Psych. While Agatha clearly chose early on which style she felt was more compelling, the constant contrast of Poirot's "little grey cells" (not to mention Tommy & Tuppence's detecting which is based mainly on what they've read in fiction, or Miss Marple whose intuitive-little-old-lady act surprises folks every time) and the traditional police work of detectives like Giraud or Inspector Japp make every one of these stories more rich.

- E.

The Only Saxophone Soundtrack You Need: Or, Songs of the Jazz Age

When I was a little kid, my parents decided it would be a good idea to introduce their 4th grader to Masterpiece Mystery! on PBS. THANK GOODNESS they did, because it quickly became my most favorite show (see ya, Sesame Street) and is most certainly responsible for my lifelong obsession with Agatha. The best Masterpiece Mystery! episodes (in my opinion) were (and still are) the glorious adaptations of Hercule Poirot novels, starring David Suchet. Even now, that amazing, saxophone-studded, 80's theme song for the Poirot shows fills me with such nostalgic bliss because it reminds me of my nine-year-old self experiencing Agatha for the first time (and feeling super stoked to be able to stay up "late" on a Sunday night.)

And GUESS WHAT - you TOO can listen to all the delightful music from the Agatha Christie's Poirot television series, any time you like!

(image found here)

Click here to listen to the soundtrack on Spotify.

Click here to buy the album on Amazon.

Happy listening!

-A.

How to be Charming: The Secret Adversary | 1922

"You must stifle this longing for vulgar sensation, Tuppence. Remember that if Mr. Brown is all he is reported to be, it's a wonder that he has not ere now done us to death. That's a good sentence, quite a literary flavor about it." "You're really more conceited than I am--with less excuse!" - Tommy & Tuppence banter exhibit 4 million from The Secret Adversary, p. 57

The Sum of It:
The Secret Adversary begins with a prologue set in the last above-sea-level minutes aboard the Lusitania. Two attractives notice each other in what could likely be the last moments of their lives. However, hope for end of life comfort is dashed by a secret mission as a document is handed off to a young American lady before she boards a lifeboat #womenandchildren.

Our story itself opens with the most charming greetings ever between the main characters (not the boat people): “Tommy old thing!” “Tuppence old bean!” (dolls). Tommy and Tuppence knew each other during WWI while Tuppence was acting as a nurse in a soldiers hospital. Turns out post-war they’re both broke and unemployed, like pretty much everyone else in their generation (remember that number from White Christmas where they dance around in the giant wooden cutouts of people and sing about how they wish they were back in the army because of the free meals and such? Pretty much like that but one war earlier). They hatch a plan to raise funds via adventures, “no unreasonable offer refused.”

Their tenure as young adventurers begins with an overheard name: Jane Finn, which Tuppence cleverly repeats to a mysterious man who heard their plan and basically stalks her in a park to try to hire her to move to Paris (nooothing shady, he promises. MHMM). Sleuths now “in earnest,” they follow the trail of the mysterious Mr. Whittington (the stalker) which leads them straight to a SECRET GOVERNMENT AGENT who is like “you dummies are in the middle of something FAR BIGGER THAN YOURSELVES” then naturally hires them as spies (presumably bc they are charming and...expendable?)

Tommy and Tuppence pursue Jane Finn, the secret document, and the mysterious Mr. Brown (COMMIE/CRIMINAL MASTERMIND) lit’rally all over Great Britain. They're fueled by cleverness and witty repartee and accompanied by an American named Julius, who proves his Americanness by saying things like "If that's the case, and there's such a thing as graft in this country, I'll buy her off!" and "See here, this isn't Sicily!" They also engage a young sidekick named Albert who is perpetually on the brink of saying "GEE WHIZ" and generally keeps an eye out.

In the interest of not getting too spoiler-y because this book is stuffed to its gills with suspenseful twists and turns and disappearances and kidnappings and intrigues and hidden rooms and secret communist meetings and nursing homes and car chases (for realz), I will not do much plot summarizing re: the rest of the book, but there is more charming banter than an episode of Gilmore Girls and the dadgum story is so exciting and suspenseful it cost me most of a night of sleep the first time I read it because I HAD to finish it in one sitting #AgathaReigns #YasKween.

Not Tuppence, but close

The YOA Treatment:
Of all the Christie books I've read before, this one is probably my favorite, even on a re-read. In addition to a legit suspenseful storyline and more than one major twist, favoritism is largely due to the crime fighters we meet in this, Agatha's second book; Tuppence Cowley and Tommy Beresford. Tommy and Tuppence are two 20-somethings with little to their names besides cleverness, and like most of Agatha's sleuths, they lean on their intuition to solve the mysteries rather than training.

Tuppence, a plucky, quick-witted, level-headed girl with progressive tendencies (she favors fashionable short skirts and refuses to play a supporting role) creates an archetype of #empoweredladies we'll see repeated in lots of Agatha's stories. Though Tommy and Tuppence are a duo, and Tommy calls upon his resourcefulness to get out of a number of scrapes, Tuppence is the brains of the operation. She pushes Tommy to think outside of the box and focus on their interest in adventure when they can't find jobs, she finds them their first mystery, roots out key suspects, goes under cover, and all kinds of other stuff on her own initiative #LeanIn. Agatha doesn't write many simpering heroines or weak damsels in distress, instead creating women who know what's up and take care of it (often while making snappy little jokes).

In her autobiography, Agatha mentions how one of her grandmothers was always complaining of some vague ailment or another, which Agatha eventually divined was really just an act to demonstrate the feminine frailty deemed attractive in the 19th century. Agatha recognized this as an antique mentality; 20th century girls were made of heartier stuff. In Tuppence she created a leading lady who not only embraced the bobbed hair and ankle-baring fashions of her day but also the why-not-me spirit of the post-war girl.

- E

 

Intro to Agatha: The Mysterious Affair at Styles | 1920

(image found here)

"The company once assembled, Poirot rose from his seat with the air of a popular lecturer, and bowed politely to his audience. 'Messieurs, mesdames...'" -The Mysterious Affair at Styles, p. 160-161.

Welcome to week one of The Year of Agatha! There is no better place to kick off a year of reading through Agatha Christie's complete works than where it all began: The Mysterious Affair at Styles. (FUN FACT: This book was Agatha's first hit, other than a few short stories she had published here and there, and she was so pumped that she named her first house Styles, after this fictional Essex manse.)

The Sum of It:

A cast of thousands (well not literally...):
(But seriously there are a lot of charming auburn haired ladies and manly landed gentry. Plus a troup of Belgian refugees. And farmers. #digress) Styles is the first time we meet Agatha's beloved Belgian: Hercule Poirot. Charming, already notoriously proficient at his job as a detective, "dandified" and astute as they come, we can immediately see why Agatha came back to him again and again, with the reading public in tow. But Poirot is not the only Christie staple we meet in Styles. Captain Arthur Hastings, Poirot's loyal (although prone to being a bit dim and completely lacking self-awareness) companion, begins his long-standing tradition of narration with this case. We also meet Scotland Yard's Chief Inspector James Japp ("Jimmy Japp!" as Poirot calls him) who, despite seeming wholly incompetent at solving crimes, remains with us through the entirety of the Poirot universe (and sometimes moonlights in other books!).

How the "coco" crumbles:
Thirty-year-old Hastings, home in England from the front lines of WWI, spends his month of sick leave with his old pal, John Cavendish, at the Cavendish family estate: Styles. It's all fun and games until John's kind (yet also fairly bossy and with dubious taste in fellas) mother, Emily, dies suddenly in the night. The doctors (yes, two of them show up) cry POISON! so Hastings enlists Poirot (who is a Belgian refugee conveniently refugee-ing in the same village, boy is England small) to catch the murderer. But surely the killer is just her much younger husband (described as basically having the style sense of Rasputin) who stands to inherit everything, right? But could it be that simple? Missing coffee mugs and forced locks and the farmer's wife must all be sorted before Poirot can get to the bottom of who killed poor, rich Mrs. Inglethorp.

And the nominees for best supporting character are...
POISON! Agatha put her wartime pharmacist chemistry skills to great use in this book. You'll never think of bromide in the same way...(assuming you've ever thought of bromide. YOU WILL).

Poirot's Belgian Roommates: They make a very brief appearance (mostly just to tell Hastings that Poirot isn't home), but one has to stop and wonder....did they keep a chores calendar?

Hastings' Love Life: Darling Arthur falls in love with no less than two women in this book. This is not an isolated incidence.

Hefty Cross-Examination: Move over, The Good Wife, there is a new sheriff in town and his name is Sir Ernest Heavyweather, K. C. (aka early 20th century British for attorney).

Scraps of Paper! Please see the actual example below:

(image found here)

The YOA Treatment:

Styles is the first time we are introduced to Poirot and his uber-methodical process of sleuthing. Agatha doesn't give us too much detail about the Poirot origin story in this case, beyond telling us he a) is a bit on the older side, b) was a big deal in the Belgian police force back in the day, and c) he is a major neat freak. We are also given a delightful first taste of the Poirot Way of Solving Crime. While he does a bit of CSI stuff (collecting fragments of thread, collecting coffee samples for analysis, and picking a lot of stuff up with tiny tweezers), Poirot is most fond of enumerating interesting tidbits in his head to let his "little grey cells" do the hard work. "We will arrange the facts, neatly, each in his proper place," he says to Hastings, while scribbling in a notebook. 

But while Poirot prefers order and method, he isn't too high brow to ignore the good old gut feeling. In Styles Poirot talks about feeling something in your "heart of hearts!" and trusting your instincts. And Poirot isn't the only Agatha detective who relies on intuition when it comes to crime. Check back on Monday (January 11th) for our post on The Secret Adversary, which features a lot of #gutfeeling, and a whole lot of ADVENTURE!

*Extra Bonus Points: This great post about Styles becoming a Penguin paperback on A Penguin a Week blog.

- A

Agatha by the Numbers

We are hard at work completing our assigned readings for this week, so in the meantime we put together some key Agatha facts in a handy dandy infographic! See you on January 9 for The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Secret Adversary.

(These fun facts come from agathachristie.com, inconsolata.com/image/110743413522, and An Autobiography by Agatha herself!)

2016: The Year of Agatha

Hi, we’re Audrey and Emily. The Year of Agatha is a project we conceived via text message in 2015 while simultaneously watching episodes of Marple in our respective homes. Agatha Christie has been one of the best known and best loved masters of mystery for almost 100 years. Since we both admit to being occasionally teased, nay, mocked for our devotion to almost century-old British mysteries, we wanted to explore what it is that makes her stories connect just as much with millennials as they did with the post-WWI readers who were her contemporaries.

To get ready for the project, we read Agatha’s self-titled autobiography to learn a little more about her life and her personality. Over the course of 2016, we’ll be reading all of Agatha’s mystery novels -- some we’ll divide and conquer and some we’ll team up on, like Hastings and Poirot (but with a less marked gap in intelligence). We’ll be documenting our thoughts on themes, plots and characters drawn from real life, whether Tommy & Tuppence are basically millennials, the number of times Hastings totally misses the boat, favorite side characters, the poor souls who find the bodies and whether they are similar to Law & Order cold-opens, and much more. On Saturdays and Mondays, we’ll provide a quick overview of each book, accompanied by our super-erudite analysis, and the occasional mood board of things we think Tuppence might buy while online shopping.

Audrey (aka Clawdrey), tell us about your life-long interest in Agatha and the inspiration for this project.
I grew up in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere Michigan which, bizarrely, had a fantastically extensive public library. One summer I discovered the Agatha Christie bookcase way in the back of that little library. Several big shelves housed her complete works, and I devoured each one in rapid succession. I can vividly remember reading Peril at End House in one sitting and coming to the end and being so excited that the Queen of Crime had dozens more of these glorious mysteries for me to read. My grandma would tape Masterpiece Mystery episodes of Poirot for me and I would watch them over and over until the tapes nearly wore out. Agatha Christie stories give me such a happy nostalgic feeling and I can't wait to relive all the mysterious memories with Emily this year!

Emily, why don’t you tell us about how you got into Agatha?

As a preteen, I also picked up a number of our lady’s greatest hits in my regular summertime library runs, familiarizing myself with some of the most well known mysteries in the canon, like And Then There Were None and Dumb Witness. Once I became friends with Audrey and we realized that we basically like 95% of the exact same things, she was shocked to realize that I had never watched David Suchet’s long-running BBC Poirot series, so naturally I watched them (as well as Marple) and of course became a devotee, reviving my interest in Agatha. Since then I’ve read a few more of the books, seen the Doctor Who where Agatha Christie helps the Doctor save everyone from a giant wasp alien, and gotten more curious about Mrs. Christie herself. When Audrey suggested we read all the books as a joint project, I was pumped to get to know Agatha and her stories better.

So if you’re out there, thanks for joining us! Let us know when we’re reading one of your favorites, share your theories about the stories, and discuss how all the Girl on the Train fans have Agatha to thank.

Tune in after January 9 for our first book post, a joint review from both of us on Agatha’s first two books, The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Secret Adversary.