Short Story Honesty & The Occult: Double Sin + The Golden Ball | 1961 & 1971

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(image from here)

"Suddenly the child stirred. His eyes opened. He looked past his mother towards the open door. He tried to speak and she bent down to catch the half-breathed words. 'All right, I'm comin,' he whispered, then sank back. The mother felt suddenly terrified; she crossed the room to her father. Somewhere near them the other child was laughing. Joyful, contented, triumphant, the silvery laughter echoed through the room. 'I'm frightened, I'm frightened,' she moaned.

He put his arm around her protectingly. A sudden gust of wind made them both start, but it passed swiftly and left the air quiet as before.The laughter had ceased and there crept to them a faint sound, so faint as hardly to be heard, but growing louder till they could distinguish it. Footsteps -- light footsteps swiftly departing.

Pitter-patter, pitter-patter, they ran -- those well-known halting little feet. Yet -- surely -- now other footsteps suddenly mingled with them, moving with a quicker and lighter tread."
  - The Golden Ball and Other Stories, p. 166

The Sum of It:
More short stories for the both of us this week! We are kind of reaching our limit of clever-ish things to say about dear Agatha's short stories, so we decided to combine our two book posts this week and offer a little Halloween weekend twist on our latest reads.

But first, a little spotlight on some of the stories we read in Double Sin & Golden Ball. These two collections are both a smattering of all of Agatha's sleuths and styles. We have Poirot and Marple and James Bond (no, not THAT James Bond) and little romantic couples and CREEEPYYYY couples and cat people (yes, CAT PEOPLE) and the list goes on and on! The title story from Double Sin and Other Stories is a fun one. Poor over-worked Poirot (he just CAN'T say no to trivial cases because his little grey cells need stimulation!) agrees to go on a bus holiday with Hastings to get some R&R. Along the way they meet a nice girl named Mary who works in the antiques business with her kind aunt. Mary is on her way to meet up with an American collector who wants to buy a set of "valuable miniatures." When the group stops for lunch, Mary is sure she sees a man trying to steal her suitcase with the miniatures! She runs outside to confront the guy and he's like whoa, settle down, we just have the same suitcase (aka, my airport baggage claim nightmare.) Mary's like whoops, my bad, kind sir! HOWEVER, when they arrive at the hotel later that day, Mary is devastated to find out that her miniatures WERE STOLEN AFTER ALL! Have no fear, Poirot is here! (sayeth Poirot) and the vacationing sleuth gets to work finding his poor friend's treasures.

Double Sin is a rather fun collection if you want to have a bit of Poirot and a bit of Marple in your life. Some other fun stories from the book are Sanctuary (Miss Marple's vicar's wife pal, Bunch, heads into church to do some stuff and stumbles across a man DYING on the church floor. His mysterious last words are "sanctuary!" and something about jewels. Bunch gets in touch with Miss Marple straight away to help discover what happened to the poor man), and The Theft of the Royal Ruby (aka The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding - one of our favorites!)

The Golden Ball and Other Stories is a bit disappointing, to be honest. It's a mix of the not-so-great romantic mystery vignette stories from The Listerdale Mystery (some of them are seriously like, moralistic tales, it's weird) and some straight up #DARK ghost stories from The Hound of Death. We have had a running text conversation about our thoughts and feelings on these short stories and the stretches concerning Golden Ball were almost all Emily giving Audrey the basic creepy plot followed by exclamations of "WHAA?!?!" (Spoilery example: "One with a ghost gypsy who tries to save someone from a terrible fate by marrying him then turns out terrible fate is that he accidentally kills ghost gypsy then he dies too and they both are ghosts!" "WHAT. AGATHA STOP IT.") - essentially, if you're looking for some ghosty reads for Halloween, definitely give this a crack, because it's got all the haunted houses and ghost children your Halloween heart might desire (starting about midway through the book, with The Hound of Death). If you're looking for your typical Agatha short story gems, give this one a pass, and get yourself to Poirot Investigates.

The YOA Treatment:
In her Autobiography, Agatha discusses her mother's dabbling in the occult (in addition to several other religions, including Catholicism and Buddhism #wellrounded). Agatha talks about Mother Clara having a sense about danger and even sensing people's thoughts, and this interest transferred a bit to the daughter, as many of Agatha's early stories and some of her subsequent work followed her interest in spiritualism and paranormal activity.

Many of the tales in The Golden Ball (which was not published in the UK), which were pulled from the alternate collection The Hound of Death, concern the terrible mysteries of the paranormal world. Compared to Agatha's novels, these stories feel totally unusual, intentionally scary, as opposed to a who-dunnit style mystery. If you're in the market for a quick spooky tale to read aloud to your pals over the light of a flickering Jack-o-lantern this weekend, we can recommend The Lamp, or The Hound of Death.

- A. & E.

P.s. Don't forget to sign up for Booktrack and try out a fun way to experience Agatha, for free! Go back to our post from a few days ago to find the link for signup.

Double, double, toil and trouble: The Pale Horse | 1961

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"There are two methods, it seems to me, of approaching this strange business of the Pale Horse. In spite of the dictum of the White King, it is difficult to achieve simplicity. One cannot, that is to say, 'Begin at the beginning, go on to the end, and then stop.' For where is the beginning? To a historian, that is always the difficulty. At what point in history does one particular portion of history begin? 

In this case, you can begin at the moment when Father Gorman set forth from his presbytery to visit a dying woman. Or you can start before that, on a certain evening in Chelsea." 

- The Pale Horse, Forward

The Sum of It:

This tale of village witches and conspiracy to murder is narrated by a newcomer, an historian in his early thirties named Mark Easterbrook. He got mixed up in the tale somewhat by chance, and it all began for him when he stopped by a fashionably hip espresso bar in Chelsea for a break from his book about Mogul architecture. While he was there, he witnesses a cat fight between two ladies (Agatha uses the b-word! #gasp), one of whom has handfuls of her curly red hair pulled out by the roots, but bravely (so Mark thinks) proclaims it didn't really hurt. He's confused by the hipsters #beatniks, and also by the red-haired girl, whose name, it turns out, is Thomasina Tuckerton. He's even more confused a few days later when he sees her name in the obituaries! 

A bit later, Mark meets up with some friends after seeing Macbeth, and they start talking about whether or not village witches are a real thing, or just a handy scam by creepy old ladies to get free stuff and keep dogs from messing with their chickens #witchpriorities. One of the girls, apparently not the brightest bulb in the box, tries to explain about some folks who do murders for hire over at a place called the Pale Horse, but she gets confused and can't quite explain. Mark brushes off the oddness til this weirdness turns into a series of incidents: he bumps into an old friend who's now a medical examiner when he stops by Mark's recently deceased godmother's house to follow up on a lead. Turns out, the godmother's unique last name was among a list of names found on a murdered Catholic priest! Seems like the list was dictated to the priest by a woman dying of a sudden and mysterious illness. In the course of their conversation, Mark recognizes a couple of other names on the list, one of which is Tuckerton, and starts thinking something wicked this way comes...

Delightfully, Mark is a pal of Ariadne Oliver's, and when he stops by to talk to her about attending a fete' his cousin is putting on in Much Deeping, she has some classic Ariadne/Agatha rants about writing mysteries (ex: "Or drink," said Mrs. Oliver. "I wish I did. Like those American detectives that always have pints or rye conveniently in their desk drawers. It seems to solve all their problems. You know, Mark, I really can't think how anyone ever gets away with a murder in real life. It seems to me that the moment you've done a murder the whole thing is so terribly obvious.") and ultimately agrees to go to the fete' on the condition that she not be forced to go have drinks at a local pub in Much Deeping called The Pale Horse. Mark's curiosity grows, and ultimately he wrangles a visit there when they're in the village, finding it now a home occupied by three decidedly witchy women #Eaglesstyle, who seem more than happy to talk about mysterious ways of killing people. Ultimately, he and the vicar's wife decide he has enough facts to link these supposed witches to a string of mysterious deaths, and with the help of an affable red-headed cutie aptly nicknamed Ginger, he decides to set a trap for evil, never realizing how close he'll come to the real deal. 

The YOA Treatment:

This one is a great read! I keep worrying that the later we get in Agatha's career, the more likely her books will get a little weaker (for one thing, how could anyone be expected to come up with 86 original ideas?!) but I keep bumping into some of the strongest books yet, so once again am forced to conclude that Agatha is superhuman. 

Speaking of original ideas though, Agatha gave herself a good idea for a story in a throwaway anecdote shared by a character in this book as a means of explaining how creepy old ladies can seem like witches, and it turns up again in 1968 as the key premise of a Tommy & Tuppence tale, By the Pricking of My Thumbs! For kicks, here's the section in Pale Horse:

"But I remember being sent once with a message to a doctor at a mental home and I was shown into a room to wait, and there was a nice elderly lady there, sipping a glass of milk. She made some conventional remark about the weather and then suddenly she leaned forward and asked in a low voice: Is it your poor child who's buried there behind the fireplace? And then she nodded her head and said, Twenty-ten exactly. It's always at the same time every day. Pretend you don't notice the blood."

Clearly Agatha was well pleased with the creepiness of that premise, we can't wait to get to By the Pricking of My Thumbs #spineshivers! 

Part of the reason the premise of this book is so engaging is the way that it keeps building and building. Typically, something crazy or mysterious happens and right away the detectives and police are on the case! Agatha cleverly set this one up a little differently, in a way that we see reflected in many modern crime shows, such as Midsomer Murders or even Sherlock, where one crime seems straightforward but something is a little off, and the police are trying to decide whether to just leave it or tease out the loose thread. She pairs that with the series of odd coincidences that ultimately gets Mark Easterbrook involved in trying to solve the mystery, about halfway through the book, by allowing one thing after another to connect the dots for him until he realizes there really is something sketchy going on, and that he might be the only one (besides the Vicar's old wife in Much Deeping) who is willing to dig through the seemingly bogus witchy stuff to figure out where the real crime is. This seemed like a very realistic way for an everyday person to get involved in trying to solve a mystery of some kind, and I enjoyed the new way to approach the story. Well done, again, Dame!

- E. 

The Girl Who Cried Murder: Hallowe'en Party | 1969

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"I saw a murder once," said Joyce.

"Don't be silly, Joyce," said Miss Whitaker, the schoolteacher.

"I did," said Joyce.

"Did you really?" asked Cathie, gazing at Joyce with wide eyes. "Really and truly saw a murder?"

"Of course she didn't," said Mrs. Drake. "Don't say silly things, Joyce."

"I did see a murder," said Joyce. "I did. I did. I did."

-Hallowe'en Party, p. 14-15

The Sum of It:
I present to you the first of two #spookystories this weekend! Our first tale starts on a dark and stormy (well, maybe not specifically stormy...) night in the village of Woodleigh Common. Mrs. Ariadne Oliver is visiting a pal she met on a cruise (#cruisepals #shuffleboard), Judith Butler, and is quasi-helping out at a Halloween party for the local kids. Mrs. Oliver is sitting around, kinda just enjoying being a resident celebrity, and observing the party prep. In what appears to be an attempt to impress Mrs. Oliver, young party attendee Joyce Reynolds blurts out that she has seen a murder once. Everyone rolls their eyes and says don't be ridiculous, Joyce, that's obvi not true. Joyce keeps insisting she has seen a murder based on the fact that she didn't realize it was a murder at the time, but now that she's older, she gets that it was. More eye rolls commence, and then everyone continues going about their Halloween business. It seems like a pretty enjoyable party with treats and games and a local lady who dresses up as a witch. However, the evening turns truly sinister when young Joyce is found #DROWNED in the apple bobbing tub!

Joyce's death appears to be quite definitely #MURDER and Mrs. Oliver is badly shaken up (disturbed to the level of potentially giving up apples! #GASP!) from the whole affair. She rushes to London to visit the only person who can help her: Hercule Poirot. He agrees to look into the case and travels with Mrs. Oliver to Woodleigh Common to get down to investigating. Poirot's first order of business is to see if there was a murder in Woodleigh Common that Joyce could have potentially witnessed. He discovers a great many deaths...but were any of them truly murders?

The YOA Treatment:
I enjoyed this book very much. *(Caveat: I would say a good percentage of my enjoyment came from reading this right before Halloween. Agatha really does her holiday-themed mysteries rather well.)* I adore the Mrs. Oliver/Poirot dynamic, and their relationship works well for this particular story. Mrs. Oliver feels semi-responsible for Joyce's death, as her presence probably sparked Joyce's comments about witnessing a murder, which likely led to her death. It makes sense that Mrs. Oliver would turn to the very best for help to ease her conscience and take the burden of crime solving off her shoulders. The story gets occasionally bogged down in a great deal of time dwelt on sex crimes and the fashion choices of mid-60s teenage boys. There is also a fairly bizarre part that highlights the silliness/sometimes stupidity of tween-aged girls, and yet, I can forgive Agatha all of this because of her use of a single, well-placed clue that got my wheels turning along with Poirot's to ultimately discover Joyce's killer.

-A.

PS: for an absolute treat, I also recommend this young man's Agatha Christie reviews on YouTube. BE WARNED: he does have spoilers. But it's totally worth it.

How Do You Experience Agatha? | Exploring BOOKTRACK!

Happy Thursday, friends!

As we have been making our way through our Year of Agatha project, we have enjoyed experiencing Agatha Christie’s works in various formats. We primarily read hard copy versions of her books, but have dabbled in Kindle and audiobooks as well - we particularly enjoy listening to narration by Hugh Fraser (you might know him as tv’s Hastings alongside David Suchet’s Poirot in the television adaptations of many of Agatha Christie’s works!). Speaking of film, we are also huge fans of many of the Poirot and Marple movies - while obviously not the same as reading her books, many of them are very spot on in their interpretation of the story and are a great way to feel immersed in the Queen of Crime’s world - this project was partly inspired by our love for them!

Thanks to the Year of Agatha, we have come across another way to feel immersed in Agatha Christie. Booktrack is a new, multi-sensory way to experience reading. Guys, it’s straight-up fascinating! Customized sound effects and music are included with eBook versions of books to provide a soundtrack to what you’re reading - and it’s specific down to each page of the story! The good people at Booktrack reached out to us to check out their Agatha Christie Booktracks - The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Secret Adversary. We are both people who like to multi-task while we read and you can usually find us with some sort of music going on in the background, but Booktrack takes this to a new level by pairing the perfect tunes and sounds with just the right moment while we read so we feel like we are smack in the middle the story! We are particularly partial to Tommy & Tuppence’s adventures in The Secret Adversary and loved hearing ominous tones while we followed the Beresfords efforts in trying their hands at spy work. Poirot and Hastings’s country-house party turned #MURDER investigation in The Mysterious Affair at Styles was also so fun to experience with birds chirping as the pair travel around the village in search of clues. Booktrack provides a fascinating way to immerse yourself in some of your favorite books!

The good folks at Booktrack want YOU to enjoy sampling their first two Christie books for free! Here's how:

1) Go to booktrack.com and click "Sign up" to start your account

2) Return to this post and click here to let us know your email address so that we can tell them to drop these two Christie titles in your account for free!

Give these a try and be sure to let us know what you think in the comments section!

Want to learn more about Booktrack in general? Their website and blog have a lot of great information, and be sure to check them out on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook!

Many thanks to Booktrack for the collaboration and the opportunity to have a new Agatha Christie experience!

Audrey & Emily

*A version of this blog post originally appeared on booktrackbeat.com - read the original post HERE!

Pre-Fame Poirot: The Underdog and Other Stories | 1951

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"Lord," said Japp, stretching himself backward, "I believe I could manage another egg, and perhaps a rasher or two of bacon. What do you say, Captain?"

"I'm with you," I returned heartily. "What about you, Poirot?"

Poirot shook his head.

"One must not so replenish the stomach that the brain refuses to function," he remarked.

-The Underdog & Other Stories, p. 108

The Sum of It:
I'm back on the short stories train this week! This week's collection is The Underdog and Other Stories. Many of these little gems have been in other short story collections we have read this year, but two were new to me - and both quite fun indeed!

The Market Basing Mystery is an obvious first attempt of Agatha's later short story, Murder in the Mews. Poirot, Japp, and Hastings are basically on a nice crime solvers retreat weekend in the country having brunch when they are called to the scene of what is first deemed a suicide, but the doctor on the scene is sure it can't be! The dead gentlemen (a reclusive fellow named Protheroe #murderatthevicarage!) interacted mainly with his dedicated housekeeper, Miss Clegg, who doesn't have much to say about her master's death. However, two randos had recently showed up to stay with Protheroe, and Miss Clegg found THAT very mysterious. It just takes a little time of handkerchief and cigarette investigating for Poirot to sniff out the culprit!

In The Lemesurier Inheritance, Poirot and Hastings run into an old acquaintance of Hastings at dinner. This young fellow, Captain Vincent Lemesurier, is quickly called away because his father is gravely ill. After he leaves, Poirot learns the sad (and rather epicly confusing, if I'm being honest) history of the Lemesurier family. If I have this right, great-great, etc. grandpa Lemesurier was like crazy I think and thought his wife was fooling around behind his back and then also there's a thing where the first born sons of the Lemesuriers always die and never get to inherit the vast fortune and the fortune always goes to third or sixth sons or distant cousins or whatnot. Anyway, Poirot and Hastings are a little taken aback when they find out that Captain Vincent has jumped out of the train and died on his way to go see his dying father! Thus continues the "curse" of the Lemesurier first borns, as Vincent stood to inherit his father's estate. Time goes by, and more Lemesuriers die until the fortune finally goes to a Hugo Lemesurier. However, the curse is apparently still going strong because Hugo's American wife pays Poirot a visit and says that her young first-born son, Ronald (who has curly auburn hair #important), has been nearly killed several times! The only person who could benefit from Ronald's death is Ronald's even more baby brother (we are talking like a five-year-old here) and that just doesn't seem plausible, says Poirot. Poirot heads over to the Lemesurier home to get to the bottom of this "curse" and finds out there is something shady going on FOR SURE.

The YOA Treatment:
It's interesting to get a taste in these short stories of Poirot & Co. in their fairly early days of crime solving. Of course Poirot had a career with the police back in Belgium before he moved to London, but these stories in Underdog (and more to come when we get to Poirot's Early Cases) show Poirot when he is solving British crimes, but has not reached the realm of international fame that he has in books like The ABC Murders, Death on the Nile, etc. He doesn't go around saying "well of course you must have heard of me, etc.", because people really don't know that yet. There are a few stories (I'm thinking particularly of the title story and The King of Clubs where a bona fide prince gets involved) where Poirot is investigating a more high-level case. However, many are more commonplace mysteries: ladies wondering if their husbands are poisoning them, missing cooks, checking out some potentially shady business at a party, etc. It's nice to see that Poirot has to pay his dues just like the rest of us! I can't wait to see more of his early life in Poirot's Early Cases.

- A.

The Girl on the Train: 4.50 from Paddington | 1957

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"True to the precepts handed down to her by her mother and grandmother—to wit: that a true lady can neither be shocked nor surprised—Miss Marple merely raised her eyebrows and shook her head,” - 4.50 from Paddington

The Sum of It:

I have been WAITING FOR AGES for it to be time to read this one, because I love, love, love the "Agatha Christie's Marple" version, and the book totally lived up to it. Eek! Ok, so, summary. 

Miss Marple's friend, Mrs. McGillicuddy, is riding the train to visit her pal after doing some Christmas shopping in London. As she gazes out the window at another train traveling past, well, honestly I want to let Agatha explain it because I was pretty struck with what a beautiful job she does describing the scene, from the motion of the trains to the suddenness of the murder scene: 

"For a time the two trains ran parallel, now one gaining a little, now the other. Mrs. McGillicuddy looked from her window through the windows of the parallel carriages. Most of the blinds were down, but occasionally the occupants of the carriages were visible. The other train was not very full and there were many empty carriages. 

At the moment when the two trains gave the illusion of being stationary, a blind in one of the carriages flew up with a snap. Mrs. McGillicuddy looked into the lighted first-class carriage that was only a few feet away.

Then she drew her breath in with a gasp and half-rose to her feet."

What she saw was a #MURDER taking place in the opposite train! She could only see the back of a man with dark hair as he straight-up strangled the life out of some poor blonde lady in a light-colored fur coat. After she regains her senses, she reports it to the ticket guy, who is like "yeah sure, crazy old lady" but says he'll tell the railroad. When she gets to Miss Marple's house, she is quite shaken up, and Miss Marple insists on some booze to ease her nerves as they discuss. They go to bed, figuring they'll read all about it in the paper the next day, only...crickets. "WTF?!" they say, and go to the police who are like nope, no dead ladies on the train or by the tracks, maybe he was just play-strangling her but really she wasn't dead [sounds like a suggestion a certain presidential candidate might make in a similar circumstance, "Oh what she's fine we were just PLAY strangling" #lockerroom] 

ANYWAYS both Miss M and her pal Mrs. M are kind of distraught because they know it's true. SO Miss Marple rides the train a million times, figures out the only spot a body could have been dumped, then calls up a very clever and resourceful young lady she knows, Miss Lucy Eyelesbarrow, and is like "yo, wanna get yourself hired at this big estate so you can help me find a dead body?" Naturally Lucy is like yah that sounds like a blast, I'm in, and gets to work with the Crackenthorpes, a clan of eccentric richies who own the only spot of land where the body could have been tossed. In addition to cooking lots of things, tending to children, and putting up with marriage proposals from literally every single male in the family, she does her assigned detecting and finds the body in an old sarcophagus in a barn. But at that point, the plot only thickens! Who is it? Why she ded? Who did the murdering? Only Lucy, Miss Marple, and Miss Marple's handsome Scotland Yard pal, Inspector Craddock, can figure it out. 

The YOA Treatment:

This one is soooooooooooooo delightful, team. It's been a bit since I've read a truly delightful one (have had some that were adequate, just not like, YAY) and so I really enjoyed 4.50 from Paddington. For one thing, the concept is great. I often look over at people on other subway trains, or in other cabs, and wonder what's going on over there. I love how Agatha sets the scene for a drowsy Mrs. McGillicuddy, just chillin on the train, to all the sudden see something very scary an unexpected. You can almost see her, Ariadne Oliver-style, walking around and thinking to herself about what would happen if you saw someone get murdered on another train and then the police said there was no evidence of a murder on the train when they checked it out. So interesting to consider, and Miss Marple is the best character to just quietly ride the train, trying to figure it out, then enlist some other folks to do the real heavy poking around once she gets the story straight. It is clever, and the plot trips along nicely. 

Another thing I truly love about this story, both in book and television version, is the character of Lucy Eyelesbarrow. In her, Agatha creates a clever and intuitive young lady sleuth, but one who is quite different from the plucky, bon-mot slinging young, Katharine Hepburn-in-Bringing-Up-Baby-style heroines of books like The Secret Adversary, The Man in the Brown Suit, or The Seven Dials Mystery. Lucy is 32, a bit older than these other characters, and though she is bright, attractive, and clever, she's a little more mature and thoughtful in how she goes about things, maybe more of a Hepburn-in-Philadelphia-Story style lady. She manages the home brilliantly, but Agatha also made sure to give her a mathematics degree from Oxford, and she constantly gets proposed to, but seems to mostly just roll her eyes. I really enjoyed reading this character, and how she interacted with the other great characters in the story, of which there are many! The Crackenthorpe family is full of colorful characters, from artistic, Hemingway-style brother Cedric to the cranky family patriarch who is mostly just annoyed that everyone wants his money, and it was lovely to meet all of them and wonder who might be the culprit!

This one is quite clever, mystery-wise, but it's also just a truly enjoyable read. Definitely going on my list of key Agatha's to recommend. Go get a copy! 

- E. 

Casual Weekend Murder Hunt: Dead Man's Folly | 1956

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"‘[Absorption in one’s personal life] is, you know,’ Poirot persisted, ‘a form of humility. And humility is valuable. There was a slogan that was written up in your underground railways here, I remember, during the war. “It all depends on you.” It was composed, I think, by some eminent divine– but in my opinion it was a dangerous and undesirable doctrine. For it is not true. Everything does not depend on, say, Mrs Blank of Little-Blank-in-the-Marsh. And if she is led to think it does, it will not be good for her character. While she thinks of the part she can play in world affairs, the baby pulls over the kettle.’
‘You are rather old-fashioned in your views, I think. Let’s hear what your slogan would be.’
‘I do not need to formulate one of my own. There is an older one in this country which contents me very well.’
‘What is that?’
‘ “Put your trust in God, and keep your powder dry.'" - Dead Man's Folly

The Sum of It:

In this novel, Poirot is a bit old fashioned in his views (on purpose?) and we learn what color cyclamen is (it's pink). It allll begins when Poirot gets a phone call from his old pal and apple enthusiast, Ariadne Oliver, basically being like "POIROT! I'M ON VACAY! YOU'RE NEEDED, TAKE A TRAIN, WE'LL SEND A CAR." Poirot is like what huh what and then tells Miss Lemon to get him a train ticket because he's curious like a cat. Turns out Ariadne is staying at these people's country house and designing a #MURDERHUNT which is apparently a variation on the more typical treasure hunt set to raise money for the county's local fete. She called in Poirot because she's got a funny feeling about the people in the country house, and is worried someone might actually get murdered. 

In a massive twist, someone does get murdered! Actually a few people. The action centers (kind of) around a fuggles folly that was built on the property at the whim of the lady of the house (Hattie Stubbs), who is a total drip but very beautiful, and married to this new money fella (Lord Stubbs) who used to be in the military and has a beard. Their lovely estate, Nasse House, used to be occupied by the Folliat family, who lost their fortune (partially to death duties, which has become a major recurring gripe of Agatha in these later books, clearly a political concern of hers #topical #activist #torypresumably.) Now the only remaining Folliat in town is Amy, who lost her husband, sons, and fortune around the times of the war. Now she has sold her house to the Stubbses, and she lives in the lodge at the gates #howthemightyhavefallen. Anyhow on the day of the #MURDERHUNT a young girl is found murdered, Lady Stubbs disappears, and Poirot sets about trying to figure out what happened. There is a great deal of slight of hand in terms of disguises and false identities, and a hidden corpse, as well as a mysterious visitor on a fancy yacht. 

The YOA Treatment:

One interesting thing about this tale is the depiction of the fall of these old great houses of the British aristocratic families, #DowntonAbbey style. By the time this book was written, in 1956, very few of the old families had the resources to maintain massive estates and the huge houses that had been the pride of their families for years. The struggle to retain the glamour and prominence of years gone by, and the old traditions of these homes, is a prominent feature of this story's plot. 

Another interesting thing about this story is the premise of the #MURDERHUNT, which Ariadne Oliver is trying to create for the residents of the local village. She is not only writing the story, but also developing fake "clues," such as difficult to interpret photographs of certain areas on the estate's property. Considering the abstract nature of a real life mystery - definitely requiring some creative thinking to tease out real clues from the aftermath of a crime - it would be difficult to do this in a believeable way. 

Also as she is developing the mystery, she keeps getting input from all the people hanging out on the estate, which is what makes her start to feel uneasy. She just starts thinking hmm someone might actually die over here, and which of these people is telling me clues to help facilitate an actual murder? This is an interesting parallel to Agatha's experience in developing a mystery plot, paired with the characters that evolve within the plot - how do you drop in red herrings and suspicious actors without disrupting the plot, or giving the whole thing away? It's also a bit of a parallel to our experience as readers, constantly trying to tease out simple suspicions from actual maliciousness. 

While this one wasn't a major standout for me, it also had some interesting conceits, and was a bit of a thinker!

- E. 

The Five Star Experience: At Bertram's Hotel | 1965

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"Inside, if this was the first time you had visited Bertram's, you felt, almost with alarm, that you had reentered a vanished world. Time had gone back. You were in Edwardian England once more." 

-At Bertram's Hotel, p. 2

The Sum of It:
I'm back with Miss Marple this weekend - and it's been such a treat! Miss Marple's niece, Joan (married to the regularly-referenced nephew Raymond West), wants to give Auntie Jane a bit of a vacay. Joan asks Jane where she would like to go, and Miss Marple answers straight away: SEND ME TO BERTRAM'S! Apparently Miss Marple visited this classy establishment as a teenager and half wants to relive the good old days and half is just plain curious if it's still as great as she remembers.

So off she goes to Bertram's, where the staff keeps the old fashioned lights burning bright by offering traditional English delicacies such as seed cake and REAL muffins (there is a great deal of truly delightful talk about the distinctions between American and English muffins), maids with caps, and a host of old timers to give the place character. Miss Marple happily runs into old pal Lady Selina Hazy and the two are happy to sit and eat the top notch seed cake and have a good gossip. And there's plenty to gossip about, especially when the uber-famous Lady Bess Sedgwick saunters in one day. Lady Bess has an astounding history of every kind of adventure, from being in the French resistance to saving children from burning houses to having a race car driving boy toy.

Lady Selina and Miss Marple's gossip is further fueled by the appearance at Bertram's of Lady Bess's estranged daughter, Elvira, and the bombshell that Bess and Elvira maybe both have it going on with aforementioned racing driver, Ladislaus Malinowski #drama. Elvira runs around morbidly talking about what happens to her money when she dies, Bess discovers her first husband is working at the hotel, and the Bertram residents are further shocked when said ex-husband is shot as he attempted to shield Elvira from a would-be killer! Add to the mix a string of robberies and a befuddled Canon Pennyfather who may or may not be involved in them and Bertram's has quite the mystery to solve!

The YOA Treatment:
At Bertram's Hotel is by no means Dame Agatha's most fantastic novel (something we have been running into a lot recently...), however, its immense charm comes from Agatha's attention to detail and setting the scene of a location you can genuinely believe Miss Marple would want to revisit. Agatha spends a great deal of time describing the hotel's staff, fantastic tea spread, accommodation of American and English visitors, and attentive staff. Even the chair options at Bertram's get a shoutout:

"There was a general appearance of rich red velvet and plushy cosiness. The armchairs were not of this time and age. They were well above the level of the floor, so that rheumatic old ladies had not to struggle in an undignified manner in order to get to their feet."

After reading this book, more than anything I was dying to stay at a real life Bertram's. Apparently, Agatha is thought to have based Bertram's on Brown's Hotel in London (somewhere she regularly visited). This makes sense because you can feel Agatha writing from her own experience in Bertram's.

(image from here)

At Bertram's Hotel is a terrific read for when you want to be transported to the cozy, plush atmosphere of a stellar hotel (a la The Grand Budapest Hotel), and possible get a glimpse into Agatha Christie's own memories.

-A.

Miss Lemon Makes an Error : Hickory Dickory Dock | 1955

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“Poirot closed his eyes. What he perceived mentally was a kaleidoscope, no more, no less. Pieces of cut-up scarves and rucksacks, cookery books, lipsticks, bath salts; names and thumbnail sketches of odd students. Nowhere was there cohesion or form. Unrelated incidents and people whirled round in space. But Poirot knew quite well that somehow and somewhere there must be a pattern . . . The question was where to start.. . . .”  - Hickory Dickory Dock

The Sum of It:

It all begins when the ever-efficient and capable Miss Lemon, Poirot's secretary, makes three mistakes in one letter. Miss Lemon never, ever makes mistakes, so Poirot knows something is up. In explaining, she reveals that she has a sister (Poirot is shocked, apparently he thought of Miss Lemon as emerging from a pod or something) and that said sister, Mrs. Hubbard, is presiding over a boarding house occupied by a bunch of students and there has been a shady bit of thievery going on. Miss Lemon's sister is quite concerned, and the students are in a tizzy. Can Poirot help??

The list of missing items is quite troubling to Poirot's orderly mind -- they make no sense! A compact, a diamond ring, electric light bulbs, a stethoscope, boracic powder, and more. Two items have been stolen and destroyed, a silk scarf and a rucksack. The diamond ring has been returned, but other items are still at large. Poirot goes to dinner under the guise of making a little speech about crime solving so he can scope out the situation and get to know the possible culprits. After he has clearly narrowed it down, someone finally confesses -- but only to some of the stolen items. The rest are still a mystery! Everyone is ready to let it go and move on, only the confessor hints that she knows who might have committed some of the other acts #bigmistake #flyyoufools. Predictably, she is quickly found dead, presumably of suicide by morphia poisoning, but everyone soon realizes that it was totes #MURDER. NOW things are really getting interesting!

After two more murders, the discovery of a drug and jewel smuggling ring, at least two engagements, and a lot of pasta consumed, Poirot and Inspector Sharpe (his old pal) realize that more than one of the youths in the house are not what they seem. 

The YOA Treatment:

Can't lie folks, this wasn't my favorite. For one thing, Agatha was getting on up in years at this point, and I think I'm offering that as one excuse for some of the rather unfortunate racial characterizations in the book. Many of the students staying in Mrs. Hubbard's boarding house are from India, Africa, and other non-European nations, and Agatha employed some rather unfortunate descriptive language in illustrating these folks, and allows some of the characters to make some pretty absurd statements about them (for example, when Inspector Sharpe asks one character why she suspects a Mr. Akibombo, she responds "Jealousy. All these coloured people are very jealous of each other and very hysterical." #YIKES #NOTOK) This is really pretty prevalent throughout the book, and put a bad taste in my mouth for the whole thing. While we've seen some of this in previous books, this is the most overt of the ones I've read so far.

Additionally, this is another book that has a TON of characters, and when that happens, unless she's really careful with it, it can get kind of muddled and confusing. There are so many different people here, and while you do get a little attached to some of them, it's hard to keep track when they're constantly being paired up and their descriptions are all over the place. There's also a lot of kind of side-plot crime that makes the overall plot a little hard to stick with, and I just never really got very engaged with it. SORRY AGATHA! I know I've got some good ones coming up. 

- E. 

The Crescent of Intrigue: The Clocks | 1963

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"Inspector Hardcastle walked in manfully. Unfortunately for him he was one of those men who have cat allergy. As usually happens on these occasions, all the cats immediately made for him. One jumped on his knees, another rubbed affectionately against his trousers. Detective Inspector Hardcastle, who was a brave man, set his lips and endured." -The Clocks, p. 62-63

The Sum of It:
Happy October, one and all! Fall is trying to creep in here in still much-too-warm Tennessee, and we are taking advantage of every minute of it! Our seasonally-appropriate first read from this past week (aka part one of our unplanned time-keeping themed reads, Emily will soon be posting on Hickory, Dickory, Dock) is Dame Agatha's 1963 The Clocks.

Regular girl Sheila Webb works as a typist at the Cavendish Secretarial and Typewriting Bureau (apparently primarily concerned with novels of the risqué variety), and one September day, is asked for PARTICULARLY by a Miss Pebmarsh at Wilbraham Crescent to stop by and type something up. Sheila is like uh, never heard of this lady, but I type for a lot of people so guess she's some rando that thinks I do a good job? A message has been left for Sheila to go ahead and let herself and make herself at home, so that's exactly what she does. However, the scene she finds is equal parts bizarre and terrifying. Miss Pebmarsh's front room is filled with clocks - one chiming the hour and the others stopped at 4:13 (#CREEPY) - AND, of course, a dead body. Sheila is horrified and goes shrieking from the house, falling literally into the arms of (we assume) handsome Colin Lamb, a "marine biologist" who is checking out Wilbraham Crescent out for totally NBD reasons (totally not, more on that later...)

The police are summoned and come to find that a) Miss Pebmarsh is blind, b) she did not ask for Sheila to come and type for her cause she's never heard of her before, c) she has no idea who this dead man is inside her house, and d) she only has one clock and wants to know where the other ones have come from! Colin Lamb buddies up with Detective Inspector Hardcastle to look into the case. Why does this passing random dude get to help, you ask? Well because he is a secret agent, of course! He has been checking up on Wilbraham Crescent (basically a bunch of town houses all in a half circle that are in two rows so the backs come up to each other? I think?) to follow up on a clue found in the pocket of a dead spy.

The dead man in Miss Pebmarsh's house is a total mystery. He looks super ordinary, he has a fake business card on him, and nobody is calling to say they're missing a person, so the police are a bit stumped. Inspector Hardcastle and Colin's canvassing of the neighborhood turns up a frazzled mom, an extremely entertaining, deeply committed cat lady, and some intense gardeners, but nothing to really go on. Suddenly Colin has an idea. He happens to know a guy. A guy who has been retired for some years...someone who might need a little cheering up. And there's nothing like a good mystery to cheer up Hercule Poirot!

The YOA Treatment:
As we are heading into the final few months of this Year of Agatha project (where has the time gone!?!?), it is fascinating to see the lifecycle of Agatha Christie's interests in writing. We have been reading her books for the most part fairly chronologically and you can see how her interests in classic detective mysteries and spy thrillers came and went. She of course starts out with Mysterious Affair at Styles, but then spends a great deal of time in her early years with the more caper-y novels like Secret of Chimneys, Seven Dials, etc., and then settles back into many years of the more traditional Roger Ackroyd, Death on the Nile, Murder at the Vicarage, etc. In her later years (where we are currently intrenched book-wise) she harkens back to her love of the thriller with They Came to Baghdad, Destination Unknown, Passenger to Frankfurt, etc., but with The Clocks, she has tried to do both. And I'm not sure if it works...

Poirot receives basically all of his information on the crime through Colin, an exercise of the little grey cells he has done before, and yet, since he doesn't really make an appearance until nearly halfway through the book, and so much of the crime-solving happens through Colin's eyes, Poirot seems a bit like an afterthought. It's as if Agatha really wanted to write another spy novel, yet this one set in England, and threw Poirot in to bring back the readers who maybe weren't as thrilled with Destination Unknown or They Came to Baghdad? I did enjoy this read. I think the premise is quite clever, and although the murder's solution isn't one of her most stellar, it is more plausible (in my opinion) than the wrap-up for Colin's secret agent-ness. Though not the Poirot and Hastings repartee fest of the 1930s-40s, The Clocks is still a great deal of fun and certainly worth the time of anyone needing a little Belgian detecting in their life.

-A.