Showing posts with label Agatha Christie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Agatha Christie. Show all posts

Thursday, February 22, 2018

Three more books by Agatha Christie (Fontana 1976,1977 and 1980)

And one last set of books by Agatha Christie.  Last week I wrote about the same titles published in the late 1950s and early 1960s:

A Pocket Full of Rye (1976)


A sick joke brought the sharp-tongued Miss Marple to the Fortesque home...
     Sergeant Hay looked up at Inspector Neele from the bottom of the stairs.  He was panting. 
     "Sir," he said urgently.  "We've found her!" 
     "Found who?"
     "Gladys, Sir, the maid.  Strangled, she was, with a stocking around her throat—been dead for hours, I'd say.  And sir, it's a wicked kind of joke—there was a clothes peg clipped on her nose..."

Peril at End House (1977)


Accident Number One: the heavy picture that falls across Miss Buckley's bed
Accident Number Two: the boulder that thunders past her on the cliff path 
Accident Number Three: the car brakes that fail on a steep hill 
Accident Number Four: the bullet that misses her head by inches 
But the would-be murderer makes a grave mistake—he shoots at his victim while she is talking with Hercule Poirot!


The Labours of Hercules (1980)

A modern 'Labours of Hercules'...
The idea appeals to Hercule Poirot's vanity.  Before he retires to grow superb vegetable marrows he will undertake  just twelve more carefully chosen cases.
All of them will resemble the remarkable feats of strength performed by that brawny hero of ancient Greece, the first Hercules.  But when the fastidious Hercule Poirot faces his modern monsters, his only weapon will be his brilliant powers of deduction...
... And what a contrast!  The earlier editions of these books depict realistic, but rather generic Young Women in Peril on their covers.  These paperbacks are adorned with slightly surrealistic and very symbolic art.   And yes, the symbolism does tie in very neatly with the plots of the books.

The cover paintings on the later books were done by Tom Adams—an illustrator best known for the Agatha Christie covers he did for Fontana and for Pocket Books in America.  They were gathered together in a book (Tom Adams' Agatha Christie Cover Story published by Paper Tiger in 1981).  I'll admit to a soft spot for these covers; not only are they visually intriguing, but I first read Agatha Christie in these editions when I discovered the author as a teenager!

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

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!

Monday, February 12, 2018

Three Books by Agatha Christie (Fontana, 1958-1961)

I'm beginning to think I should re-name this blog "I Found It At the Lifeline Bookfair"!  I found these on a small table devoted solely to the books of Agatha Christie at last weekend's Autumn book fair:

A Pocket Full of Rye (1958)


"An unusual sound penetrated through the almost sound-proof door of Mr. Fortescue's office.  Muffled, it was yet fully recognisable, a strangled agonised cry..." 
Even as Miss Grosvenor, Mr. Fortescue's secretary, came up to him, his body was convulsed in a painful spasmodic movement. 
Words came out in jerky gasps. 
"Tea—what the hell—you put in the tea—get help—quick get a doctor—"
And that is, unfortunately, the end of Mr. Fortescue—but the beginning of one of Agatha Christie's most ingenious stories that takes all of the skill of Inspector Neale to solve.
 

The Labours of Hercules (1961)


A modern 'Labours of Hercules'—it was an idea that appealed to Hercule Poirot.
In the period before his retirement, he decided to undertake twelve cases with special reference to the twelve labours of ancient Hercules.
Amusing and original, each case more baffling than the last, we guarantee the Labours of Hercules will test the wits of the most ingenious armchair detective.


Peril At End House (1961) 


An
unknown
agent
was
methodically
planning
her
death 
—the heavy picture that fell across her bed
—the rock that landed at her feet
—the car brakes that failed

NOW—a bullet that missed her head by inches

Fontana cover artists of the late 50s and early 60s clearly had a thing for depicting young women in peril!

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie (Fontana, 1960)

Another from Fishermen's Wharf Markets:

  Murder is easy....
... so long as no one suspects you and the person in question is the last person one would suspect.

Surely you won't let Agatha Christie diddle you again--it would be again, wouldn't it?
I'm trying to figure out what's up with the woman on the cover.  I can't decide whether she is a) frightened, b) sinister or c) doing some weird kind of face toning exercise!

Friday, April 28, 2017

The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie (Pan, 1959)

Found in a charity shop on a shelf full of Christie paperbacks:


THE mysterious man in the brown suit is a link between a fatal accident at a London Underground station and the body of a strangled woman found at a Member of Parliament's lonely country house.

Enterprising Anne Beddingfeld, back by a newspaper magnate, follows clues leading to South Africa, and there finds herself plunged into a highly dangerous Secret Service adventure.
First published early in Agatha Christie's career in 1924, this book was written while she was still experimenting with different genres.  It is a thriller rather than a classic whodunnit--and her heroine is an enterprising amateur caught in the middle of things rather than a professional detective.  Readers of Christie's Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple series will find this a rather different kind of read!

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (Fontana, 1959)

Found on a stall at Fishermen's Wharf Markets in Port Adelaide:

Thundering along on its three days' journey across Europe, the famous Orient Express suddenly comes to a stop in the night.
Snowdrifts block the line somewhere in the Balkans.  Everything is quiet and passengers quickly settle down for the night, including Hercule Poirot.
In the morning an American millionaire is found stabbed, many times--Poirot is very much wanted.  The untrodden snow seems to prove that the murderer is still on board.  Poirot begins to think--and a brilliantly ingenious solution is found...
 And without a doubt, the solution is brilliant ingenious.  (No, I'm not going to tell you what it is.  This blog is a Spoiler Free Zone!  If you haven't already read Murder on the Orient Express--one of Christie's best known books--do so and find out the solution for yourself.)

This is the sort of plotting that earned Agatha Christie the sobriquet "the Queen of Crime".  At times her prose was merely functional, her characters two-dimensional, her attitudes snobbish and old-fashioned.  She was never adverse to using stereotypes, particularly when depicting foreigners or members of the lower classes.  However, she knew how to weave together the real clues and red herrings to create a mystery that kept the reader guessing right to the end.

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie (Pan, 1959)

HERCULE POIROT...

today the most popular detective in fiction since Sherlock Holmes, made his bow to the world in this book.

No one had heard the name AGATHA CHRISTIE when she shyly sent the MS. to a London publisher.  He rejected it!  So did others.  Then one more far-seeing accepted the new author's work.  It became famous--and Christie fans place it among the very best Poirot tales.

Intriguing clues marked the murder at Styles Court--crushed fragments of a coffee cup, few few threads of fabric, a scrap of half charred paper, an old envelope with these words on it:

posessed
I am posessed
He is possessed
I am possessed
possessed
And here is the Great Detective's introduction to the world:

Poirot was an extraordinary-looking little man.  He was hardly more than five feet four inches, but he carried himself with great dignity.  His head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on one side.  His moustache was very stiff and military.  The neatness of his attire was almost incredible; I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound.  Yet this quaint dandified little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his time one of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police.
[Chapter II]
If Agatha Christie had know she would be writing about this character for over fifty years, I suspect she wouldn't have made his quite so eccentric, nor would she have made him already elderly on his first outing in print!

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie (Fontana, 1962)

One more from the Lifeline Bookfair!


Sir Charles Cartwright, the distinguished actor, had invited the local vicar and his wife to a house-warming party  at his new country cottage.  The Reverend Stephen Babbington unaccustomed as he was to strong liquor, nervously sipped his cocktail with a slightly wry expression on his face.  The other guests continued to chatter.  Suddenly Mr Babbington's hand clutched at his throat, and, in a moment, he collapsed--dead.

This was only the first act in the drama--a three-act tragedy, with a mysterious death in every act.  It is Hercule Poirot, the indomitable Belgian detective, who moves behind the scenes of this play and who finally rings down the curtain.
 The man on the cover of this book is either dead drunk--or just dead!  Since the author is Agatha Christie, I'm guessing the latter.

(See also my post on the 1964 Pan edition of the same title.)

Thursday, August 4, 2016

Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie (Fontana, 1957)


WHO DID IT?

Four people are playing bridge when their host, who is sitting out, is murdered.

Only one of them could have done it--while he was dummy.  Each player has committed at least one murder before.

There are no clues; nothing but the people themselves.

Hercule Poirot was to later call this one of his most interesting cases.

We think you will agree!

Classic Christie--four suspects in a locked room with the victim!

As a bonus, this book introduces Agatha Christie's alter-ego: crime-writer Mrs Ariadne Oliver.  She has a lot of fun with the character:

"I say, I'm terribly sorry.  Am I interrupting anything?" she asked breathlessly.

"Well, you are and you aren't," said Mrs Oliver.  "I am working, as you see, but that dreadful Finn of mine has got himself terribly tangled up.  He did some awfully clever deduction with a dish of French beans, and now he's just discovered deadly poison in the sage-and-onion stuffing of the Michaelmas goose, and I've just remembered that French beans are over by Michaelmas."
(Page 112)
Finn--Belgian.  One wonders if Christie felt the same way about her detective!

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Hickory Dickory Dock by Agatha Christie (Fontana, 1958)

I found this one at a trash and treasure market:


Curious things are happening in a students' hostel.

Various ill-assorted objects disappear--a powder compact, bath salts, an electric light bulb.  A rucksack is slashed, a silk scarf is wantonly cut up.

Hercule Poirot visits the hostel.  He observes the occupants closely--Colin McNabb, the flaming, redheaded medical student; dark, clever Valerie Hobhouse who works in a beauty parlour, and all the others.  At first their relationships and characters, though intricate seem innocent, but Poirot is uneasy.  Gradually his worst fears are confirmed, a murder is committed and one after another all sorts of ugly details come to light.

Once more Hercule Poirot--and Agatha Christie--achieve a masterpiece of detection.
Hmmm.... a "flaming" medical student!

This book is ventures into strange territory for Agatha Christie.  Usually she was most at home in the world of upper-middle class England--a world of retired colonels and village clergymen--with occasional excursions into the haunts of high society.  A student hostel, on the other hand, is not only less genteel than the places she usually sets her novels, but is decidedly more modern as well.  First published in 1955 when Christie was nearly 65, the student characters in Hickory Dickory Dock belong to a much younger generation than the author.  In a way this book shows Christie's discomfort with the changing world of the mid-twentieth century, an unease that became more evident in her stories as the 1950s became the 1960s. 

(Incidentally, are couple on the cover of this edition of Hickory Dickory Dock are meant to be the students in question?  If so, they're oddly middle-aged for undergraduates!)

Sunday, February 21, 2016

The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie (Pan, 1958 and 1963)

Here we have two versions of the same book, from the same publisher, but printed five years apart.  They provide proof that while things always change they don't necessarily improve.   First, the version from 1958:


THE SECRET ADVERSARY tells how two young people advertise for adventure and are caught in a whirlpool of international intrigue which almost costs them their lives.  A gay and exciting thriller!
 A woman, held at gunpoint, hands over documents to the mysterious figure in the foreground.  The cover doesn't tell you who the woman is, or what the documents are, but it certainly lets you know that what you're about to read is a crime thriller.

Next, the version published in 1963:


Two Innocents in search of adventure.

An Elusive Young Woman holder of a vital secret

A Faceless Man with a Blueprint for Anarchy

The woman being held at gunpoint has been replaced by a picture of a dark and gloomy mansion.  While the art isn't bad, the contents of the book could be anything: a Gothic romance, a collection of ghost stories, and traditional murder-in-a-country-house whodunnit.

At least Pan's copy writers had learned to write snappier blurbs for their back covers--albeit ones with really strange ways of using capital letters!

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Appointment With Death by Agatha Christie (Pan, 1957)

Another book I bought for its cover!


"You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?"

These startling words overheard by Hercule Poirot in a Jerusalem hotel, open

APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH
by Agatha Christie

 The speaker is a young American, Raymond Boynton; he is talking to his sister Carol about their stepmother.  Old Mrs. Boynton, it appears, was a prison wardress before her marriage, and her ingrained lust for power and cruelty has gradually driven her family to desperation.  While she lives, there can be no happiness for any of them.  Soon an expedition is arranged to Petra, "the rose-red city"; and there a death occurs.  The problem is taken up by Colonel Carbury in Amman just as Poirot arrives with a letter of introduction to him.  And so the little Belgian detective becomes involved in one of the most extraordinary cases of his career.
Trust me on this: in his entire career, Hercule Poirot has never become involved in an ordinary case.

(The back cover blurb is a strangely unexciting summary of the first half of the book.  And it's in the passive voice too--an expedition "is arranged" and a death "occurs".  No, a death didn't "occur"--this is Agatha Christie.  Someone was murdered!)



Saturday, November 28, 2015

Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie (Pan, 1964)

I found this at a high school book fair:


"Sir Charles Cartwright, the distinguished actor, was giving a party.  Around him, his guests stood talking and drinking.  The Reverend Stephen Babbington sipped at his cocktail and made a wry face.  The other guests continued to chatter.  Suddenly Mr Babbington clutched at his throat and swayed...

It was the beginning of the drama,

a three-act tragedy

with death in every act"
I bought this one literally for its cover, as I already have a copy of this book (along with all the other Christies.)  The still life on the cover depicts the essentials of the plot: one glass containing poison, and one blackmail note.