Four Books by Agatha Christie (Pan, 1955-1960)

And.... the Lifeline Bookfair continued!  Here I have another four paperbacks by Agatha Christie:

Five Little Pigs (1955)

Is the floating head meant to be Poirot?  Somehow I never pictured him as wearing glasses.

FIVE LITTLE PIGS starts with Carla Lemarchant calling on the famous detective Hercule Poirot.  She tells him she is really the daughter of the painter Amyas Crale for whose murder, sixteen years ago, her mother Caroline was sentenced to death.  Carla, convinced of her mother's innocence and eager to clear her name, persuades Poirot to investigate the case.  It appears that there are five people who are concerned (hence the book's title) from the nursery-rhyme about the five little pigs).  They are: Philip Blake, Crales's greatest friend; Philip's elder brother, Meredith; Elsa Greer, "the girl in the case", who is now Lady Dittisham; Cecilia Williams, the governess; and Angela Warren, Caroline's half-sister.  Poirot interviews each of the five.  Then each provides for him a written narrative of the events leading up to Crale's murder.  Finally, Poirot reconstructs the crime and reaches his startling conclusion.  Whether you will guess the solution before it is revealed will depend on your ability to avoid being deceived by the 'double twist' at the story's climax.

... And the back cover contains a solid block of text, ticking of all the main plot points and characters one by one.  Really, why buy the book when you can get a complete summary of the story on the back cover?

The Secret of Chimneys (1956)

THE SECRET OF CHIMNEYS.  This is Agatha Christie at her mysterious best.  Anthony Cade, who liked an exciting life, was in Bulawayo escorting a group of tiresome tourists for Castle's Select Tours when Jimmy McGrath, an old friend, turned up with an attractive offer: £250 if he would carry to a London publisher the memoirs of Count Stylpitch, late Prime Minister of Herzoslovakia.  Anthony jumps at it, and also agrees to find a lady named Virginia Revel and return to her some letters misguidedly bequeathed to McGrath as possible blackmail material.  He hasn't been in London long before the letters are stolen from him, and Virginia, a beautiful widow, finds a dead man in her study—shot with a revolver engraved with her name.  Then a Hersoslovakian envoy is shot at 'Chimneys', one of England's stately homes.  From there on, this light-hearted thriller moves at a terrific pace.  There are detectives French, British and American ; characters gay, scatter-brained, sinister and odious.  And there are murders, clues, secret passages, a fabulous jewel, a mysterious rose emblem, a curious organization called the Comrades of the Red Hand, an international jewel-thief called King Victor, and impersonations, assassinations and machinations.  At the end of it all Anthony, who has done most of the work and kept everyone (including the reader) guessing, claims a double reward ; a lovely lady and a very, very strange new job.

Another solid and pedestrian block of prose, this time listing all the story elements in one of Christie's early thrillers.  "But wait!  There's more!"

The ABC Murders (1959)

MR HERCULE POIROT

        YOU FANCY YOURSELF, DON'T YOU, AT SOLVING MYSTERIES THAT ARE TOO DIFFICULT FOR OUR POOR THICKHEADED  BRITISH POLICE?  LET US SEE, MR. CLEVER POIROT, JUST HOW CLEVER YOU CAN BE.  PERHAPS YOU'LL FIND THIS NUT TOO HARD TO CRACK.  LOOK OUT FOR ANDOVER ON THE 21ST OF THE MONTH

YOURS, ETC.,

A B C  

This letter disturbs the famous detective.  Sure enough, a Mrs. Archer is murdered at Andover on the 21st. 

A second lettter announces a murder at Bexhill: and Betty Barnard is found strangled. 

Then a third, at Churston, the victim being Sir Carmichael Clarke... a fourth, at Doncaster on the day of the great St. Leger race. 

Beside the corpse each time lies an ABC railway guide open at the name of the place where the crime occurs. 

A B C D... How far through the alphabet will the crazy murderer get?  Will his challenge to Poirot succeed?

Now this is better.  The back cover tells you just enough to spark your interest.   And The ABC Murders is one of Christie's more intriguing whodunnits, too. 

The Hound of Death (1960)

Here is Agatha Christie in a different mood.

Her first story, THE HOUND OF DEATH, is fair warning that she intends to make you shiver and think!

Each of the twelve stories underlines the remarkable versatility of this very remarkable writer.  Some, like THE RED SIGNAL and THE FOURTH MAN, may make you shift uneasily in your chair.  Others, like the ironic WIRELESS, will give you grim satisfaction. 

Tucked away in the middle, like a bonus, is a story which is clearly the origin of her world-wide stage and screen success, WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION.

And this is a volume of short stories, so we can forgive the blurb writer for selecting a handful of stories and telling us how we're going to react to them.  What really grabbed me was the picture on the front cover.  It's not often you see pictures of frightened men on the covers of books, and this chap is so plainly terrified he has got me intrigued!

Flying Saucers from Outer Space by Donald E. Keyhoe (Arrow Books, around 1956)

 Found in a dusty corner of the Green Shed:

... And it has a wraparound cover.  Oh what the heck--let's see it in all its glory!

Do you believe that flying saucers emanate from another planet?  Or are you a confirmed sceptic?  Whatever your views this book will give a great deal of authoritative information about the most epoch-making phenomena of our time.

Here are investigations, reports, data and explanations from absolutely reliable sources, all rigidly and scientifically checked and verified.  The revelations in this book will startle you.  They will also fascinate you, and when you have read to the end you will be prepared for the final act of the saucer drama--an act that will have an impact on the lives of every person living on the Earth!

There's no date on this book, but research indicates that this was published some time between 1953 (when the first hardcover was released) and 1956.

This is the great-granddaddy of all the UFO conspiracy theories.  The author begins with accounts of pilots seeing things while in flight, continues with speculations about a government coverup, and concludes with a theory that we are being visited by aliens from outer space!

If I had to speculate and formulate a theory, I would say it is no coincidence that the first flying saucers were sighted in 1947, right at the beginning of the Cold War and the atomic age.  If Reds were under the beds, why not alien spaceships in the sky?   Keyhoe was one of the earliest writers about the phenomenon, producing a booked called "Flying Saucers Are Real" in 1950.  This is its followup. 

Tibetan Journey by George N. Patterson (Readers Book Club, 1956)

Someone must have taken a keen interest in Tibet, around 1956.  I found this in the Green Shed along with Seven Years in Tibet:

When the Chinese Communists broke into Tibet, George N. Patterson was engaged in missionary work there--a labor of love.  He had to leave in a hurry, and, for vitally important reasons, made a dash for India.  Yet, despite the urgency of his Tibetan Journey - which maintains a throb of excitement all through the book - the author succeeds in presenting a magnificent picture of a superb, secretive and little-known land, with its hair-raising perils, strange customs, and tough, quaint, "earthy" people.

It's strange to think that Tibet is now a tourist destination!  This book was written when travelling to Tibet was the Real Deal--something that only the most hardy and the most adventurous would undertake.  It's not a romantic account of the country (indeed, the author expresses scorn for the "Shangri-La" fantasies some people have about Tibet).  It makes no bones about describing the hardship and poverty the author encountered.  However--and this is Tibetan Journey's best feature--the author never treats any of the people he meets as anything less than individuals.  The book's blurb may describe the Tibetans as "quaint", the author most certainly does not!

Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer (Pan, 1956)

A rather battered copy of the classic travel book, found in a corner of the Green Shed:

 

SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET has been described as 'the greatest travel book of our time'.  Yet even this comendation does not do justice to the unique experiences which it unfolds.  No European has ever before penetrated into that inaccessible land in such strange circumstances, or has succeeded in staying there so long.  Heinrich Harrer, well known Austrian mountaineer and Olympic ski-ing champion, was climbing in the Himalayas when caught by the outbreak of war, and was interned by the British in India.  With a companion, he escaped at his third attempt and crossed the Himalayas into Tibet.  After many desolate marches and strange adventures, they reached the Forbidden City of Lhasa, where they were eventually allowed to remain and earn a living.  They found the traditional insularity of Tibet leavened with a new appetite for Western knowledge and ideas.  Their fame quickly spread.  Soon they were in great demand as advisers on many subjects on which they knew little.  The day came when Harrer was presented to the young Dalai Lama, the god-king; he became the boy's friend and tutor and was permitted a degree of intimacy which awed the people and worried the religious hierarchy.  After the War's end, Harrer stayed on, but when Communist China invaded Tibet he accompanied the Dalai Lama in flight to India, and then returned sadly to Europe.  His remarkable account of his experiences is illustrated with a number of his fine photographs.  A film of this book has been made by Seven League Productions, with Harrer himself playing the chief part.

There's really not a lot I can add to this detailed description--except Seven Years in Tibet was made into a movie again in 1997, this time starring Brad Pitt.

Alien From Arcturus by Gordon R. Dickson / The Atom Curtain by Nick Boddie Williams (Ace, 1956)

More from my collection of Ace Doubles!

 

Johnny Parent was driven by a furious anger--anger against the cocky Aliens from outer space and anger against the Company which had hired him to build the space drive which would lift the Quarantine against Earth.

It was a tough problem--made tougher by the Company's double-dealing.  And Johnny didn't relish the thought of cracking it with a whip on his back and a knife at his throat.

Then he stumbled upon an eccentric young playboy, his pretty but ambitious secretary and a weird little Alien with collosal strength.  Together they plotted the piratical flight into space which would earn Earth its place in the Universe.

But they had to hurry--because the Company's strong men were right behind them--and the solar time clock was running out!

 

For two hundred and seventy years America had been totally cut off from the rest of the world by an impenetrable wall of raging atomic fury.  To the frightened countries of the Old World, what had once been the greatest of all powers was now the most fearful of all mysteries.

No man ached to know what lay behind that frightful barrier more than Emmett O'Hara, restless air-sentinel of the International Patrol--whose American ancestors had been stranded in Britain the day the Atom Curtain was raised.

Then on December 20, in the year 2230, while on routine patrol, O'Hara did the impossible.  He broke through the barrier--and lived!  But the full story of O'Hara's discoveries and adventures in Atomic America is so utterly breath-taking that readers are sure to rate it a classic of modern science fiction.