booktastic

I was once in an Agatha Christie play; possibly her most famous play, The Mousetrap. I was featured as Molly, the young housewife (and, if I may say so without blushing too much, the ingenue of the play). It was an enjoyable experience, so it may come as somewhat of a surprise that, until last year (some eight years after the production of said play) - I had never, ever read an Agatha Christie novel.

I don’t know why. Possibly because I tend to avoid things that are overly popular on the supposition that “if everybody likes it, it can’t be any good” (a supposition that proves itself at least partially wrong when you consider the popularity of things like chocolate.)

But then I suddenly picked one up last year. I suppose it has to do with this mystery kick that I’ve been on: I was at the bookstore near where I worked at the time (Mustard Seed Christian Books - an unpromising name for a bookstore that I actually came to sincerely enjoy visiting) picking up a couple theological texts, when I happened to notice a copy of the Agatha Christie novel Murder at Hazelmoor (also published as The Murder at Sittaford) on the discount rack.

One dollar, it was tagged. I picked it up - it looked like a quick read, it was a mystery, and one couldn’t beat the price in this area of the world - so I threw it upon my stack of Thomas Mertons and beat a hasty retreat.

Oddly, of all the books I had picked up at that store, that was the one I was the most curious about… possibly because it was the one book I knew the least about. I had cracked it open and read the first couple pages before I even finished my lunch break that day.

The plot, as I recall it, is this: a group of people are at a dinner party and decide to have a seance (as they just randomly did in those days). It’s all fun and games until the “spirit” announces that a certain acquaintance of the group has just been murdered - which rather casts a pall over the party. Distressed, one of the party goers goes to check on the friend, and discovers that he has, indeed, just been murdered.

I wouldn’t say that Murder at Hazelmoor was the greatest work of fiction I’ve ever encountered - but it was an enjoyable book. Exciting in spots, intriguing in spots, and the mystery was fundamental to the plot (an issue I take with lots of modern mystery novels, as I’ve mentioned before, is that the mystery is almost incidental to the plot). It was good, light mystery reading.

However, despite my enjoyment of this book and the volume of Agatha Christie’s work, it has taken me several months to pick up another one… possibly because I really didn’t know where to start. I abhor reading books out of sequence, so I had to do some research before I could start with Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot. I picked up a Poirot novel a few months back under the impression that it was the first, and quickly discovered that it was not - and had to lay it aside as a consequence.

However, this year I am making solid progress. I found a book that was the first of three in a series by Christie - The Secret Adversary, a “Tommy and Tuppence” book. (Christie evidently only did three books featuring the characters of Tommy and Tuppence - a pity, as I rather enjoyed the characters in this first book.) I followed this up immediately with Murder at the Vicarage, the FIRST Miss Marple novel, which I have almost finished.

I suppose the point of this meandering is that Agatha Christie novels really are good. Oh, not good in the “well-honed brilliant writing” kind of good - in sheer writing quality I would say they are above average, but only just - but they are good mysteries. She keeps you guessing, gives you clues, eggs you on, lays out red herrings… and so far, of each book I’ve read, some aspect of the resolution has come as a surprise. I may have guessed the murderer once or twice - but something else still took me unawares, so I have to give her credit.

I guess that here is another instance of something being deservedly popular.