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!

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!

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!

Seven books by Mazo de la Roche (Pan, 1962-1966)

File these under, "I don't like the books, but oh boy, do I like the covers!"  Someone must have loved the series back-in-the-day however, because I found these as a set on a charity bookstall.

Morning at Jalna (1963)

1863 -

South of the Canadian border from Jalna, the American Civil War rages.

Into the peaceful, budding Ontario settlement come intriguing visitors with the polished manners and soft accents of Old Carolina—

Are these elegant newcomers genuine fugitives from war, or, far more alarming to Philip and Adeline Whiteoak, are they agents of the slave-trading Confederate States?

Whiteoak Harvest (1962) 

RENNY and his wife ALAYNE—their marriage near disaster...

FINCH and SARAH return from their honeymoon to upset the household with Eden Whiteoak's love-child... 

WAKEFIELD, engaged to Pauline Lebraux, but tormented by religious doubts... 

A complete and captivating story in its own right, Whiteoak Harvest is one of the famous WHITEOAKS series—world sales total over twelve million books!

Wakefield's Course (1963) 

'You must tell her who she is—and that you can't marry her'

Two star-crossed lovers face an agonizing decision in this surging episode of one of fiction's best-loved families—  

The Whiteoaks of Jalna

Young Renny (1962)

'I thought I was dead to men till you came along' 

A strong and compelling story of the Whiteoaks of Jalna—of a bitter feud, and a shattered love—and of Renny in his fiery youth and first passion.

Finch's Fortune (1962)

YOUNG FINCH—AND $100,000

At twenty-one Finch Whiteoak, proud, sensitive, reckless, becomes the bewildered inheritor of his grandmother's fortune.   

In this enthralling episode from the Whiteoaks saga, the ever generous Finch takes his two Uncles to England, and against a lovely Devonshire background, falls in and out of love with the bewitching Sarah Court—suffering all the youthful agonies of disillusion and frustrated passion.

Mary Wakefield (1965)

EARLY DAYS AT JALNA

Second of the world-famous, world-loved "Whiteoaks" novels, MARY WAKEFIELD tells of the beautiful young governess who came to Jalna in the warm summer of 1893 and of the struggle that awaited her with the pillars of the Whiteoak family, still dominated by the matriarch Adeline... 

Soon Mary became the centre of a family dispute, and it was not until a flood of emotions both violent and tender had been released that life at Jalna could resume its fertile course.

Whiteoak Heritage (1966)

The New Master of Jalna

Captain Renny Whiteoak returns from World War I to find a challenging heritage:

His father and step-mother have died.

The old uncles, Ernest and Nicholas, have been running the estate with a blissful disregard of economics. 

Young Eden, now a student, is involved in a strange and damaging love affair.

To help put Jalna on its feet, Renny employs a brash and beautiful horse-woman, and soon finds that he too is in love... 

Old Adeline wants to see Renny happily married—but who can fill the role of mistress of Jalna?

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!

The Stars are Dark by Peter Cheyney (Pan, 1948)

I found this at the Lifeline bookfair:

Its a bit of an oddity, because it's a paperback with a - gasp! - dust jacket!  I've never encountered one like this before, and I suspect I won't find a second one in a hurry.

THE STARS ARE DARK belongs to Peter Cheyney's 'Dark' series, by which word he denotes his stories of Secret Service and counter-espionage. His books are always based on fact, to an extent that would alarm his readers if they believed it; indeed, he only forsakes fact when it would be a little too incredible to be presented as fiction.  Here he gives a glimpse of some of the strange and deadly things that are perpetuated in the name of war; his characters are the men and women who wore no uniforms and won no medals, who were prepared to sacrifice everything, who stood to gain precisely nothing.  The story is told in that tense, gripping style that is his hallmark.

A sailor has arrived in Britain from Nazi-occupied Morocco, and says he has some intelligence on enemy troops stationed there.  The question is: can he be believed?  Or is he peddling misinformation?  This is what our agents set out to discover, and the plot involves several layers of deception, and more than one double-cross.

As far as spy stories go, this book stands a lot closer to John Le Carré than Ian Fleming.   There's no glamour here, no travel to exotic locations, no high-tech gadgets.  Instead The Stars are Dark is set in wartime Britain, and the action takes place in some decidedly un-glamorous locales.  What's more, two agents are killed in the course of this story, and a third appears to be sliding slowly into depression as he realises the long-term cover he has adopted has left him isolated from everything he holds dear.

However—this book was first published in 1943, and for obvious reasons the author couldn't let the Nazis win.  So there is a happy ending of sorts: most of the protagonists survive, and the villains are thwarted.  One character even gets to escape the world of espionage which is the best anyone in The Stars are Dark could hope for.

The Green Brain by Frank Herbert (Ace, 1966)

An unexpected treasure from the Green Shed:

 

In an overpopulated world seeking living room in the jungles, the International Ecological Organization was systematically exterminating the voracious insects which made these areas uninhabitable.  Using deadly foamal bombs and newly developed vibration weapons, men like Joao Martinho and his co-workers fought to clear the green hell of Mato Grosso.

But somehow those areas which had been completely cleared were becoming reinfested, despite the impenetrable vibration barriers.  And tales came out of the jungles... of insects mutated to incredible sizes... of creatures who seemed to be men, but whose eyes gleamed with the chitinous sheen of insects...

Here is a vividly different science-fiction novel by the author of DUNE.

Every once in a while I pick up a book and I find myself thinking, "What was the author on when he wrote this?"

Need I add that this is one of those books?

It was probably at least partly inspired by Rachel Carson's The Silent Spring, a study of the ecological effects of pesticides which first appeared in 1962.  (In fact the eco-rebels mentioned in The Green Brain are called Carsonites—clearly a tribute to The Silent Spring!)  A story about pesticides and overpopulation?  That was both relevant and timely in the mid-sixties.  It fits neatly into the tradition of science fiction both as speculative fiction and as dreadful warning: If you keep doing this, this will happen....

On the other hand... things get weird in this book.  In some ways it reminds me of those "nature takes its revenge" movies that became popular in the 1970s, but "nature" in The Green Brain includes sentient hive minds capable of creating imitation human beings to act as their agents in a plot to take over the world.   There is simply no rational way to get from "here" (overuse of pesticides) to "there" (sentient insects)--and to be fair, Frank Herbert doesn't even try.

At least the heroes of seventies "B" movies only had to deal with plagues of tarantulas or incursions of giant rabbits!

Lastly I've got mention that I'm disappointed with the cover of this paperback.  It's messy, a bit generic, and doesn't convey anything in particular about the characters, the plot or the setting of the story.  The covers of science fiction books went through a bit of a rough patch in the late sixties after the glorious pulpiness of the fifties.  Fortunately for lovers of the genre, things picked up in the seventies!