A Jolly Holiday with Anne: The Man in the Brown Suit 2.0

(image from here)

"When I am married, I shall be a devil most of the time, but every now and then, when my husband least expects it, I shall show him what a perfect angel I can be." 

-Anne Beddingfeld, The Man in the Brown Suit, p. 202

The Sum of It:
The Man in the Brown Suit is one of those delightful early Agatha books that is heavily spy thriller, with a dash of murder mystery, and a lot of exotic locations. Anne Beddingfeld is a spunky young woman who is somewhat repressed in her adventurous aspirations by assisting her professor father - "one of England's greatest living authorities on Primitive Man" - with his work. When he father sadly dies near the beginning of the book (CAUTIONARY TALE - WEAR A COAT WHEN DIGGING IN CAVES!), Anne heads to London with the little money her father left her. Anne is desperate for excitement, and London seems to be ready to give her nothing but governess or old lady companion jobs, HOWEVER, while waiting for her train at a tube station, Anne witnesses something very bizarre and exciting indeed: a man falls to his death on the train rails. Though it initially seems like an accident, Anne also notices a man in a brown suit (!!!) claiming to be a doctor examine the dead man's body, but then quickly flee the scene, leaving a scrap of paper with a mysterious message on it in his wake. "THIS IS THE ADVENTURE I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR!," Anne says and goes full YOLO, deciding to devote herself to getting to the bottom of this strange experience. Using the last of her money, her wits, and what she's learned from adventure radio dramas, Anne hurls herself into a saga full of diamonds, dead ballerinas, handsome brooding men, and so much more.

The YOA Treatment:
When Emily read this book for our 2016 Year of Agatha, she quickly vaulted it into her top favorites. It had been at least a decade since I had read The Man in the Brown Suit, and I couldn't remember much about it, but I trusted her high praise. It made sense that Emily liked it so much because she is more partial to Agatha's more thriller-y novels (a la The Secret Adversary and The Secret at Chimneys, etc.), and I would definitely put this novel into that same category. While I'm usually more into the straightforward murder mysteries, I must admit I did thoroughly enjoy The Man in the Brown Suit. This book is a bit melodramatic at times (Anne's banter with/about her #crush is just hysterical) and sprinkled with some rather outdated references, however, the overall effect plays out like an old timey Rom Com with a bit more fluff and humor and overseas travel than truly terrifying near-death experiences. This novel is primarily written from Anne's point of view, and she is surprisingly relatable, even 94 years after it was published. Who hasn't dreamed of being dropped in the middle of your very own mysterious adventure, that (seemingly) only you can solve? While The Man in the Brown Suit doesn't go into the psychological crime solving games you may be used to from a Christie, it is another example of Agatha's ability to write long-lasting, relatable tales.

-A.

The Many Years of Agatha #2018

(William Andrew Loomis, Woman in Yellow Shirt Reading, from this charming blog called Reading & Art.)

Hello friends,

We are so excited for a new year and all the new ideas bubbling around in our little heads for Agatha and books and you guys and here we are to finally share them!

First, regarding Agatha: 
We, like you, are clearly having trouble quitting dear Agatha even though we've spent so much time with her already. This year we've decided to do a couple things, and the first is to take an opportunity to recommend to each other some favorites that we each read on our own the first time around, swap books, and chat about those favorites from the other mindtwin's perspective. Emily hates that she missed reading The Murder at the Vicarage and The Moving Finger, and Audrey is tickled to pick up The Man in the Brown Suit and 4:50 from Paddington. You'll find the schedule of the books we'll be revisiting each month where you always do on the blog, and you'll also be seeing evidence of the reading on our social media accounts per usual. We hope those of you who are newer to Agatha's work will drop in and join us when we're working on one you're eager to read, and share your thoughts with us here or on social media! And of course, because we truly love them and can't stop staring at them, we will also continue sharing our favorite vintage copies on Instagram and Facebook.

Second, regarding other authors:
We, like you, really like books and have enormous to-be-read stacks that seem to grow almost on their own! We know it can be a bit jarring for an account you come to for one thing (Agatha Christie, for example) to flip the script periodically and try to move in different directions, so we've decided to add a second venture to the Mindtwins Media Empire (to quote Jon Lovett #FriendsofthePod, we're working on becoming media moguls), which we've decided to call #drumrollplease... The Book & Cover! 

The Book & Cover will be a second blog and set of social media accounts where we will each review and recommend books by current authors and share more gorgeous cover art along the way (because we are obsessed)! Each of us will be reading, reviewing, and recommending a book each month, either a new release or a book newly released in paperback (listen, we're all on a bit of a book budget and sometimes we just gotta wait for that PB!). You know us; We're not here to be snobby about what's cool to read, to pretend we know more than professional authors about how a good book is composed, or to ruin your experience of reading a book with silly spoilers. We get asked all the time what we're reading now, and what we can recommend folks pick up when they're in their local book shops, so we're excited to share that type of info with our pals here, on #bookstagram, and elsewhere, about new books we're truly pumped about, and to hear your #thoughtzandfeelingz about them as well.

IN CONCLUSION, IN WITH THE SAME, IN WITH THE NEW, we like to say, and we'll be here doing more of what we love for as long as you'll have us (and books). What a world we're living in right now, and what an opportunity our writer friends offer us to imagine new things, visualize magical places, feel a different person's feelings, and escape our everyday. To quote one of us from Twitter in response to a favorite author's (#CharlesFinch) lament about whether it's right to create art right now, we say that without our writers and artists, everything stops. We stop, in our exploring, and considering of perspectives and moving forward day after day. What our author friends do is vital, and we're here to shout it. As Emily Mandel wrote in Station Eleven, "survival is insufficient!" So we're here to celebrate writers, old and new, on as many platforms as we need to, and we hope you'll keep joining us and adding your voices to the revelry.

Cheers, loves, we are ever,

-E. & A.

The Girl on the Train: 4.50 from Paddington | 1957

Image from here

"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. 

First Quarter Faves | Top picks since we began our mission in January!

(image from our instagram!)

We started this project right after New Years 2016, and we cannot believe that we've already read almost 30 #GASP of Dame Agatha's iconic mysteries! So today we wanted to go ahead and report on our quarterly favorites (though there's no telling how many more favorites we might develop as the year goes on). For those of you who are just getting started with your foray into Agatha-dom, this could be a good starting list!

EMILY'S TOP THREE FAVES #SOFAR
These are in no particular order, b-t-dubs...
1)  The Man in the Brown Suit
GIANT SURPRISE right? I mean, I loved this one. So caper-y and adorable (and caper-y like cute adventures not like the salty food accessory [though no one here is demeaning capers they are wonderful, especially when combined with lox, cream cheese, and red onions I DIGRESS]).

From the book: "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

From the YOA review: "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."

2) The Secret Adversary
Again, another major surprise, but I LOOooOOOooVE Tommy & Tuppence, and especially this, their first appearance in print. They're charming and clever and fun, and keep you on the edge of your seat!

From the book: "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

From the YOA review: "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."

3) IT'S A TIE! HaHA! The Secret of Chimneys and The Mystery of the Seven Dials
I didn't want to pick between these two, because they are both so fun and perplexing and have terrific protagonists, then I realized that since they were both set in the same place, the country estate of Chimneys, maybe it was cool for them to be a tie! So convenient.

From the book (Chimneys): "He was still some distance from the house. Not a sound could be heard anywhere. Some fast yellowing leaves detached themselves from one of the trees overhead and fell with a soft rustling sound that was almost sinister in the stillness. Anthony started; then smiled. 'Nerves,' he murmured to himself. 'Never knew I had such things before.'" - The Secret of Chimneys, p. 226

From the YOA review (Chimneys): "One thing about this story that really kept the intrigue going was the narrator situation. Even though the story wasn't written in the first person, we mostly see things through Anthony's perspective. We filter the red herrings, the scary home invasions, the mysterious gunshots, and the tense situations through his lens. But all the while, Agatha drops hints that there's something Anthony knows that he isn't telling us."

From the book (Seven Dials): "I never faint," said Bundle. "But you might as well get me a cocktail. I shall certainly need it. Then lock the door of the room again -- don't forget -- and take all the door keys back to their proper doors. And, Alfred -- don't be too much of a rabbit. Remember, if anything goes wrong, I'll see you through." - The Seven Dials Mystery, p. 109

From the YOA review (Seven Dials): "Despite people (men) constantly fussing that she shouldn't be involved with solving the mysteries at hand on account of DANGER, Bundle takes it upon herself to get to the bottom of things. When trying to track the baddie, she puts on her riding pants and climbs down a trellis (after being told to stay safely ensconced in her room while the  men handle things). When she can't figure out what the mysterious Seven Dials entails, she insists on hiding in their lair to figure it out straight from the source (despite a fella telling her she musn't risk it; she just asks for a gimlet [both cocktail and tool varieties]."

AUDREY'S TOP THREE FAVES #SOFAR:

1) The Thirteen Problems
This was a surprise favorite for me. I had never read this first introduction to Miss Jane Marple before, and, as someone who is not historically a fan of short stories, I assumed it would not be up my alley. HOWEVER, I totally fell in love with the premise, and delightful Miss-Marple-ness of each story.

From the book: "'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

From the YOA review: "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)." 

2) The Murder at the Vicarage
I always thought I was a Poirot girl, but I think the last four months might have turned me into more of a Miss Marple fan! When I was reading The Murder at the Vicarage I found myself literally laughing out loud, quoting long passages to my family and friends, and ready to pack up and move to St. Mary Mead.

From the book: "If I were at any time to set out on a career of deceit, it would be of Miss Marple that I should be afraid." - Leonard Clement, The Murder at the Vicarage, p. 194

From the YOA review: "Agatha seemed to take particular pleasure in writing Miss Marple, and her readers found a connection with her new character as well. Vicarage is considered one of Agatha's best works and even her contemporary, Dorothy L. Sayers, wrote to #DameAgatha to give her approval: "Dear old Tabbies [speaking of Miss Marple and her old lady cronies] are the only possible right kind of female detective and Miss M is lovely...I think this is the best you have done - almost.""

3) Sad Cypress
Though sans Hastings, Poirot is a somber delight in this novel. The case is more serious, but still so wonderfully clever. I have a feeling this will stay on my favorites list throughout the year.

From the book: "One does not practice detection with a textbook! One uses one's natural intelligence." -Hercule Poirot, Sad Cypress, p. 166

From the YOA review: "Agatha is said to have thought this book would have been better without Poirot. I highly disagree. I enjoyed this book immensely, and it made complete sense to have Poirot as the investigating mind to prove Elinor Carlisle guilty or not guilty, because this is just the kind of case he would enjoy solving."

Have you read any of our faves? Thinking of picking one up after perusing this post? We think any of these titles would be a great place to start.

-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.