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!

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!

The Blind Side by Patricia Wentworth (Hodder and Stoughton, 1955)

Ross Craddock had not been on the best of terms with his relations.  More than one of them had reason to wish him dead, as Ethel Bingham was pleased to inform Detective Abbott and considering the number of residents of Craddock House, who, for one reason or another , withheld information, this prying old maid was just the answer to a policeman's prayer.

Lots of people wanted Ross Craddock dead... and sure enough, he's murdered by page 49!

It's a truth universally acknowledged, that the victim in a Golden Age whodunnit is invariably a loathsome person.  This serves two purposes.  Firstly, it lets the reader enjoy the puzzle without worrying about the person who has been murdered.  Secondly it gives the author plenty of suspects to bamboozle the readers with!

An Axe to Grind by Erle Stanley Gardner (Four Square, 1958)

In this hard-hitting, swift-moving murder mystery the author introduces that notable private eye, Donald Lam, confidential agent of Cool & Lam.  He has said goodbye to the Navy, and is looking for peace and quiet. 

But before he has time to say "Hello" to Bertha Cool, trouble walks into the office.

Within thirty minutes, Donald is off to the Rimley rendezvous, a place for lonely women with little to do and money to spend.  From then on it's a matter of corpses and cops, with a beautiful girl called Billy Prue who gets herself into trouble. 

A. A. Fair (now known to be Erle Stanley Gardner, world's record-seller in detective fiction) has written an original murder story, salty with American dialogue and wisecracks.

Wow!  Another Cool and Lam mystery, which is great.  (This is easily the best series Erle Stanley Gardner ever wrote.  Really.)  Not so great is the cover.  It looks like the artist fell asleep during anatomy drawing class.  Either that, or he had serious problems with perspective.  I know the dame opening the door in the picture is meant to be leaning forwards, but her top half is dangerously out of proportion with the rest of her!

The Glass Slipper by M.G. Eberhart (Pan, 1952)

THE GLASS SLIPPER is a mystery novel by a well-known writer who excels in creating an atmosphere of tension and mystery.  A year ago Rue had been sent by the hospital to nurse Crystal Hatterick, wife of one of Chicago's most distinguished surgeons.  Crystal was a patient of Brule Hatterick's protégé and friend, Dr. Andrew Crittenden, and under his care she had been well on the road to recovery when suddenly, to everyone's amazement, she died.  And within a few months Rue became the second Mrs Hatterick, with the world at her feet--wealth, position, beauty.  Yet when someone called her Cinderella, and said, "I wonder--does the glass slipper ever pinch your little foot?" the arrow found its mark.  Complete happiness had eluded her.  Andy Crittenden is the first to tell her that she is suspected of murdering Crystal.  Events then move fast. Another death occurs.  The suspense grows!

I must admit the question that preoccupied me while I was reading this was, "What kind of author names her heroine 'Rue'?  And what prompts her to name another character 'Brule'?"  

Mignon Eberhart was once called the "American Agatha Christie", but judging by this there's a reason why her books have fallen into obscurity, while Christie's have never fallen out of print.  Agatha Christie's characters are often collections of stereotypes, but they live on the page.  The characters in The Glass Slipper—Rue and Brule, et al—are puppets that exist only to further the plot.  Christie's characters have motives for doing what they do—Eberhart's characters' actions make no sense!

This is one of the older Pan paperbacks in my collection--but not THE oldest.  That will be coming up shortly...

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!

The Corpse Came C.O.D. by Jimmy Starr (J. Coker and Co., 1951)

Found at one of the Lifeline Bookfairs, complete with shabby dust-jacket:

Hector Ross, studio dress designer, disappears following  a tiff with glamorous movie star, Mona Harrison.  A few days later, Ross's body, dumped into a packing case, is delivered C.O.D. to Mona's house.  How her boyfriend Joe Medford, ace crime reporter, sets about the task of finding the murderer, provides a story packed with thrills and suspense.

What do you call a fictional character who likes to name-drop real people's names?

George Burns and Gracie Allen were across the way.  They waved at Mona, who returned the greeting.  Edgar Bergen, without Charlie McCarthy, sat in a corner booth.

(Page 43)

 As I strolled in, I noticed Fred Astaire over in a corner with his producer, David Hempstead.  Carole Landis was at the bar, telling stories of her army tour in Africa... Dorothy Lamour and Paulette Goddard, still in studio make-up, were gabbing about clothes in a far booth.

(Page 113)

I looked around the room.  Janet Gaynor and Adrian, the famous stylist, were sitting in the next booth.

(Page 115)

Jimmy Starr (his real name, evidently!) was a screenwriter and Hollywood gossip columnist in the 1930s and 1940s, so this novel really is a case of "writing what you know".   It was made into a movie starring George Brent and Joan Blondell in 1947.

Corpse at the Carnival by George Bellairs (Thriller Bookclub, 1958)

Another Lifeline Bookfair treasure!

 

In his latest thriller, George Bellairs takes us back to the lovely and haunting Isle of Man.

It is holiday time in Douglas, and a carnival crowd engulfs a solitary, elderly man, who is peacefully gazing out to sea.  When the procession passes, the old man quietly dies.  He is found to have a knife wound in his back.  He is, at first, merely an anonymous victim, known casually to a few locals as Uncle Fred.  Superintendent Littlejohn, called to visit his old friend the Rev. Caesar Kinrade, Archdeacon of Man, on his way home from a police conference in Dublin, is asked by his comrade Inspector Knell, of the Manx C.I.D., to give him a hand in the case, unofficially.

As the inquiry progresses, Uncle Fred is virtually brought to life again by Littlejohn.  The lost years of his past are found again, his friends and his foes appear, the events leading up to his strange death fall in line and, gradually, the picture of the murderer appears.

Anna, Where Are You? by Patricia Wentworth (Hodder and Stoughton, 1959)

Another find from the Lifeline Bookfair:

about this book

The twentieth ' Miss Silver ' mystery.
Anna sounds a dull, uninteresting girl, but when she stops writing after three years of intensive post-school correspondence, Thomasina becomes anxious about her old school-friend.  In her last letter Anna spoke of a new job without giving any details, and then, to quote Thomasina, she disappears.  The case is put before Miss Silver... "Just a girl who has stopped writing."

 Here we have a dynamic cover illustration (Who is that girl?  And who or what is menacing her?) paired with a downright clunky piece of prose on the back of the book.  Let's hope the potential buyers of this publication found the front cover more intriguing than they found the back cover off-putting.

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.

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!

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.)

Double Doom by Josephine Bell (Ballantine, 1957)

From the Lifeline Bookfair:

 

In the quiet English village of Farthing-On-Hone, two brothers suddenly die, one of an accident in the garden hothouse, the other--two days later and even more unexpectedly--while convalescing in a hospital.

What makes this coincidence of deaths peculiar, not to say downright macabre, is the notice which appears in the local paper announcing the demise of both brothers at the same time--while one is still, in fact, very much alive...

A disquieting little novel, with some VERY unpleasant characters and quite politically incorrect by modern standards.  What's not to love?

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!

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!)

The Case of the Fan Dancer's Horse by Erle Stanley Gardner (WDL Books, 1959)

If you find a couple of ostrich-plume fans and a pair of white dancing slippers and advertise it in a "Found" column, you don't expect to receive a reply about a lost horse.  Yet that was what happened to Perry Mason after he and Della Street had witnessed a car accident.  It was amusing, intriguing, yet very deadly - particularly deadly.

But then he is visited by John Callender, who says he is acting on behalf of "Cherie Chi-Chi", a fan dancer.  And hot on his heels comes Mr. Arthur Sheldon, also trying to claim possession of the horse.

So it appears there is a horse!  That maybe... but there is certainly one of the most beautiful clients Perry Mason has ever had, and presently, there is also a corpse, attached to a Japanese sword.

The fan dancer is very much in evidence on the cover.  Not so her horse!

(Actually, the case involves two fan dancers, and the fan dancers' fans play a more of a role in the plot than the horse.  Never mind--The Case of the Fan Dancer's Horse is a thoroughly entertaining little mystery.  It's one of the earlier Perry Mason books too, so it isn't quite as by-the-numbers as later works in this series!)

Head of a Traveller by Nicholas Blake (Fontana, 1962)

Yet another prize from my Lifeline Bookfair Crime Spree!

 

They found the body in the Thames--the head, weeks later, in a string bag hanging on a tree.

 Short and sweet--and oh, boy, doesn't it make you want to read more!

Mind you, the blurb makes the book appear more hardboiled and gritty than it is.  And if it had been published in America, and started with the discovery of a headless corpse floating in the Hudson or San Francisco Bay, this book probably would be that kind of detective story.  One would expect the hero (either a jaded PI or a world-weary cop) to track the murderer through the mean back streets of the city, encountering various underworld types along the way.   However, Head of a Traveller was written by a British author, and the detective is a gentleman amateur who tracks the murderer to the country estate of a poet!

The Bloody Wood by Michael Innes (Penguin, 1977)

 

The setting is a gross parody.  The house party in the country house with its lawns and terraces ... and the nightingale singing in the copse on the hill.

But the hostess is a dying woman and her guests have expectations; the town is lapping up to the village; you can hear the traffic on the arterial road in between the nightingales' songs.

... And those nightingales.  They provide Appleby with the thread which leads to the heart of perhaps the most unpleasant tangle of events in his whole career.

Spoiler alert: The butler did NOT do it.

And there is a butler.  This is one of those British whodunnits where everyone is frightfully upper-crust--even the detectives.  It is a rather late entry in the genre--The Bloody Wood was first published in 1966.  Nonetheless it has all the traditional ingredients, including a country house party where most of the guests have a motive for murder.

Incidentally, if I'm ever invited to one of these shindigs (not likely, I know!) I'm going to say, "Thanks, but no thanks!"  The death rate at these parties is higher than in most warzones.

Kudos, by the way, to the author, who manages to make a reference to Agatha Christie on page  135:

'I suppose it's nonsense,' he said.  'But--do you know? - I never hear of a tape-recorder without remembering some mystery story or another.  By one of those dashed clever women who concoct such things.  Frightfully good.  Only, of course, I don't remember how it was brought in ... Sorry.'

Headed for a Hearse by Jonathan Latimer (Pan, 1960)

More loot from my Lifeline Bookfair crime spree:

 

SIX DAYS

to go before Westland would go to the electric chair for the murder of his wife...

SIX DAYS

for him to sweat in the death cell--with a gangster and a fiend for company...

SIX DAYS

for private investigator William Crane to flirt with death and find the real killer...

Now this is an example of hard-boiled crime fiction.  Originally published in 1935 it is steeped in Depression cynicism, and filled with characters who are corrupt, cowardly and treacherous.   Innocence is vindicated--eventually--but it takes a lot of bribes and a sharp lawyer.  Oh, and some help from gangsters:

    Butch looked forbiddingly at Crane.  "Connors musta told you about us."
    "You bet he did."  Wind whipped the side curtains against the body of the car and whistled across the back seat.  "He said you boys could muscle your way into heaven and come out with a truckload of harps."
    This was a lie but it satisfied Butch.
    "Connors would have been all right," he said, "if he could of left the coppers alone.  It's OK to knock off a hood or so, but you oughta be careful about shootin' coppers.  It makes the judge mad, and sometimes he won't let ya fix the case."

(Page 110)

Out of the Past by Patricia Wentworth (Hodder, 1959)

I went to the Lifeline Bookfair this weekend, where I turned to crime.  Fortunately it was of the paperback kind:

 

A huge ugly old house, hordes of friends and relations--and a young man with information to sell and suppress.

A perfect setting for a murder--and for

MISS SILVER.

With a cover like this you'd certainly expect your detective to be more than a little hard boiled--drinking neat whiskey in his lonely office between romancing dangerous dames and fighting it out with toughs on the waterfront.  Instead the detective in this story is a retired Victorian governess with a fondness for knitting and Lord Tennyson.

Ah well, at least there's blackmail and murder to liven things up!