After watching, and not liking, the new adaptation of Towards Zero, I have been thinking a lot about Agatha Christie’s books. And I think I’m going to embark on a re-read. I have read all her novels written under her own name, some multiple times, but not for the last decade, or so. I have been thinking of doing a reread before, but always felt I ought to start with her first one. The problem is that I don’t like The Mystery at Styles much, so I never felt the urge to get started. But really, why should I read them in publishing order? Only the Tommy and Tuppence books have an inner chronology anyway. So instead I’m going to read them roughly in the order of how much I like them. And I may not reread some I don’t care for much.


I read my first Christie when I was 10. It was Death in the Clouds, and I got interested because the cover showed a giant wasp in front of a plane. I was definitely too young for it. I remember enjoying the beginning when they were in the plane, and I really enjoyed the description of what the passengers had in their handbags and pockets. But the rest when Poirot interviews the suspects, I found it very boring. But a few years later I saw the 70s version of Murder on the Orient Express, loved it and promptly found it in my parents bookshelves, and was hooked. I quickly went through the Christie’s we had, The ABC Murders, Sad Cypress, Cyankalium and Champagne and Hickory Dickory Dock. I don’t usually remember where I find the books I read, but somehow remember my first Christie's. I found Nemesis, Sleeping Murder, Three Little Piggies, 4.50 From Paddington, Appointment With Death, Posterns of Fate and Mrs. McGinty Is Dead at our local library. From both sets of grandparents I found At Bertram’s Hotel, A Caribbean Mystery, Death On the Nile, Evil Under the Sun, A Murder Is Announced, Lord Edgware Dies and A Pocket Full of Rye. I also started to collect titles from used book stores. In my late teens I started to read books in English and switched to buying the titles in English instead of Swedish. The last Christie I read was The Hollow.


Over the years Christie has got a lot of slack for being a bad writer, but I think she is the opposite. She’s an extremely economical writer, basically everything that happens in her books is relevant to the mystery. But it takes real skill to be able to pare down your writing to the bare essentials and still be able to write a compelling story. And her writing is compelling. She wouldn’t still sell, if people found her books dull. Many of the Golden Age writers are forgotten today, but there is a timeless quality over her books that makes them easy to access. She’s not perfect, of course. Many of her books show the prejudices of her time, which can certainly be galling. And though I don’t think her characters are the cardboards they are sometimes accused of, she does use stock characters over and over again. The grumpy patriarch/matriarch, the vamp, the downtrodden spinster, the never-do-well, and so on. But just when you think you have her pegged, she turns round her narratives and surprises you.


I think reading Christie in my teens was good insofar as all the detective tropes she uses were new and exciting to me. Which they were for her readers when the books were first published. Because very, very often, Christie was the one who invented them in the first place. So I look forward to this reread, starting with my all time favourite; the Hollow.


If you enjoy podcasts, I can really recommend All About Agatha (can be found on Spotify too). It goes through every single Christie novel in depth, and most of the short stories as well. They also include discussions on the various adaptations. A word of warning, though. One of the hosts died very suddenly a few seasons in, and I found it a bit shocking to hear.