Christie’s challenge? How can all ten people be killed, according to the old nursery rhyme, with no outside interference? Main-landers have been instructed to leave the island alone. Besides, no one can come to the island is bad weather, and the weather is stormy.

As each guest unpacks they notice a framed copy of this nursery rhyme on the wall of each room: Ten Little Indians

Ten little Indian boys went out to dine;

One choked his little self and then there were nine.

Nine little Indian boys sat up very late;

One overslept himself and then there were eight.

Eight little Indian boys travelling in Devon;

One said he’d stay there and then there were seven.

Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks;

One chopped himself in half and then there were six.

Six little Indian boys playing with a hive;

A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.

Five little Indian boys going in for law;

One got in Chancery and then there were four.

Four little Indian boys going out to sea;

A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.

Three little Indian boys walking in the zoo;

A big bear hugged one and then there were two.

Two Little Indian boys sitting in the sun;

One got frizzled up and then there was one.

One little Indian boy left all alone;

He went out and hanged himself and then there were none.

One by one each of the ten strangers begin to die. At first the reader decides there has to be someone else on the island. Then the reader becomes fascinated with how the method of each death matches the nursery rhyme. This reader then thought that, by the time there were only four people left, someone or something would intervene and save the remaining favorite characters. Finally, by the end, I was completely puzzled. I figured it had to be someone very well hidden on the island or one of the ten. But — who, and how, and why? The reader must wait for the Epilogue to explains it all.

And Then There Were None is, by far, THE BEST Agatha Christie mystery to date. Suspense fills every ounce of this story. It was impossible for me to figure out who would be the next victim and who was doing these heinous crimes. If you only want to read one of Ms. Christie’s books, read this one. It’s that good. Expect to be stumped.

I listened to the audio version of this book. It was beautifully narrated by Hugh Fraser. His voice was perfect for this story; his drawing-room accent mingled well with the creepiness of the plot.

And Then There Were None was first published in the UK in November 1939 as Ten Little Niggers. Three months later it was published in the US with the title changed to the last few words of the nursery rhyme. The story has been rewritten several times as plays, movies and a TV show. Just stick with the original story.

I read this novel as part of the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge. (Click the button below for more info.) This is book number 31.

Author

Publisher: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1942

Genre: Mystery

My Rating: A+

I have been faithfully reading Agatha Christie’s novels in publication order. I’ve worked my way up to the late 1930s. Then I started to get bogged down. The stories were beginning to feel dark and sad. I know this time period was very sad in England and perhaps that was affecting Ms. Christie. I don’t know.

I decided to skip ten books ahead to a book that features Jane Marple. I’ve always enjoyed her lighthearted adventures. So I skipped ahead to 1942 to read this one.

The Body in the Library is a classic mystery. This one is, as you guessed, a story about a body in a library. For years Agatha Christie wanted to use this plot device. She wrote in her notebook:

 ”I laid down for myself certain conditions. The library in question must be a highly orthodox and conventional library. The body, on the other hand, must be a wildly improbable and highly sensational body.”

Ms. Christie’s inspiration for this particular story came while she was dining at a seaside hotel. She observed a young family at a nearby table. Also at the table was an elderly gentleman in a wheelchair. That’s all it took. Ms. Christie’s imagination took off from there. Here’s how the story went -

The body discovered in the library was that of a platinum blond wearing a cheap white evening gown. The library belonged to Jane Marple’s good friends, Dolly and Arthur Bantry. She knew, of course, that her friends didn’t kill the young woman. They didn’t even know her.

The police learned the young woman was about to be adopted by a wealthy man in a wheelchair. Two of the young members of his family had good reason to want the young woman dead. They had, however, excellent alibis. Plus, another young woman is discovered dead. Can they be connected?

In this case our elderly spinster, Jane Marple, was quite welcome to become involved. Dolly Bantry invited Jane to help out on behalf of her husband. (She knew people would be spreading rumors about Arthur and the blond.) Miss Marple was also included by Sir Henry Clithering, a retired head at Scotland Yard. Sir Henry loved Miss Marple’s cunning ability to see the corrolaries between village life and suspects in a murder inverstigation. The police did good work in this case but naturally, Jane Marple figured it out early. She didn’t tell anyone until there was enough evidence.

Agatrha. Christie had a good time writing this one. It was very clever. She even added her own name into the story. A young boy was talking with one of the police detectives. The detective asked him if he had a natural interest in the murder. The young boy answered:

“You bet. Do you like detective stories? I do. I read them all, and I’ve got autographs from Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie and Dickison Carr and H.C. Bailey. Will the murder be in the papers?”

I had a good time readng The  Body in the Library. The most puzzling question was how the body got into Dolly and Arthur’s library. I didn’t see it. Overall, I’m counting this as one of my favorite Agatha Christie novels. There were lots of twists in this one and I will strongly recommend it as a good mental exercise.

This is book number 30 for my Agatha Christie Reading Challenge sponsored by Kerrie at Mysteries In Paradise.

Author

Publisher: Dodd, Mead, & Co, 1938

Genre: Mystery

My Rating: A-

Summary:

A lovely cruise down the Nile River is the perfect trip for honeymooners unless the wife’s former best friend, who is also the husband’s ex-fiance, is also on board, determined to spoil the fun. The honeymoon is definitely over when the wife, also one of the richest women in England, is murdered.

In addition to those three, there are about 15 other passengers on board. Each one has something of interest to offer to the story. Fortunately, two of the passengers are well known for the detective work: Colonel Race and Hercule Poirot. Together they begin a thorough and orderly investigation of all the facts. As they proceed they are thrown a few surprises and additional challenges.

My Thoughts:

This is now my 29th book in my goal of reading all of Agatha Christie’s 87 novels. I’m reading them in order, as she wrote them. Within the last four or five books I’ve begun to see the value of reading them this way. By now the author is confident in her writing abilities and in the public’s acceptance of her books. It shows.

As I read this one, my overwhelming thought was that Agatha Christie must have had so much fun writing this book. The fun just came through loud and clear. In the beginning she took her time setting up all the characters and laying out the plot. The murder doesn’t occur until almost the mid-point of the book.

Here are some of the other things I really liked about Death On the Nile:

• Each one of the characters on board the ship were interesting. I always the feeling that each one was possibly more than what they appeared on the surface. That added to the mystery.
• Ms. Christie did an excellent job of describing the people on board. She seemed to take more care with the details.
• Hercule Poirot was much more lighthearted in this story. He actually made little jokes about himself. I was glad the other “official” along on this trip was Colonel Race. I always imagine him as the classically handsome man-of-the-world who always knows the right thing to do. He’s a great partner for Poirot.
• I liked the romances allowed among a few of the characters.

I only have a couple of disappointments in the book, and they are small disappointments. For one thing, I thought she waited too long to stage the murder. I knew who was going to be killed and I kept expecting it to happen at the start of each chapter. Did Ms. Christie want the reader to be happy when she was finally murdered? Again, this is a minor complaint, and probably due to my impatience.

Something I would have liked in the book was a drawing of the ship. It would have helped a lot in understanding the movements of all the passengers. Plus, I had to keep reminding myself the definitions of stern, aft, port, and so forth.

All in all a fun, interesting, and compelling mystery. The final outcome and “who-dun-it” could only have come from the pen of Agatha Christie.

For more Agatha Christie, check out the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge at Mysteries In Paradise.

Publisher: Harper Collins

Original Copyright Date: 1937

Genre: Mystery

My Rating: B

Dumb Witness starts out like many other classic novels. It’s set in a small village, in one of the old family houses. The story is concerned with the last remaining family member, Emily Arundell, a wealthy woman in her seventies, and her nephew, nieces and a paid companion.

Another key character in the story is Bob, the dog. He’s Emily Arundell’s cute little terrier. He loves to play run-and-catch outdoors, but he also has a favorite indoor game. He takes his ball to the top of the stairs and carefully nudges it till it rolls down the stairs. Then he likes to run down and try to catch it.

Miss Arundell isn’t too fond of her nephew and nieces as she knows they are just interested in her money. Nevertheless, she invites them to her home for the Easter holiday. One night Miss Arundell fell down the stairs in the middle of the night after supposedly stumbling over Bob’s ball. The only problem is, Bob was outdoors all night.

The fall didn’t kill her, but it prompted her to write a letter to Hercule Poirot. Somehow the letter was never posted until a few months later. By that time Emily Arundell was dead. What did she die from? Was it really natural causes?

At this point in the story I was hollering to Agatha Christie: “Don’t bother Hercule Poirot. I can handle this one on my own. But, of course, she brought in Poirot and Hastings anyway. They did serve as good “leg-men” for me. They ferreted out some of the missing facts. However, it took them way too long to suit my taste. Poirot felt like he had to talk at length to every single person who ever knew Emily Arundell.

This is book number 27 of 87 in the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge.

Check your local library or your local bookstore for copies of this book. Dumb Witness is also available at Amazon. (I am an Amazon Associate.)

“There are only four [suspects] and any one of them, given the right circumstances, might have committed the crime . . . each of whom has, [allegedly, already] committed murder and is capable of committing further murders. They are four widely divergent types, the motive that drives each one of them to crime is peculiar to that person, and each one would employ a different method. . . . When all is said and done it is the mind of the murderer that is of supreme interest.”

In Cards On the Table, an evil but rich man, Mr. Shaitana, teases Hercule Poirot with the information that he can put on display, people he knows have committed murder and gotten away with it. He invites Poirot to a dinner party in which these people will be present.

At Mr. Shaitana’s dinner party there are four “sleuths”, and four other people that Mr. Shaitana implies are murderers. After dinner the four sleuths play bridge in one room and the other four people play bridge in another room. Mr. Shaitana sits in an easy chair in the room with the four alleged killers. And, at the end of the evening – you guessed it – Mr. Shaitana has been murdered. The four sleuths set about to gather information and to analyze it all. No detail was spared, including the bridge scores.

It truly was a captivating story with lots of twists and turns. It was definitely a head game – a game of taking apart the lives of each of the four suspects. I liked each of the four sleuths but loved the character of Ariadne Oliver. It was easy to see that Agatha Christie was having fun with this character and was also pointing fun at herself as a writer. I look forward to meeting Ms. Oliver again in future stories.

My only disappointment in this story was at the end. I thought it could have ended about a chapter earlier. The details in the last chapter could have been slipped into the previous chapter or left out completely. It made the story drag at the end. That disappointment didn’t spoil my overall appreciation for Cards On the Table. This was the author’s twenty-fifth novel. I could feel the author’s confidence in her storytelling abilities. This is Agatha Christie at the top of her game.

As most of you know, I’ve been working my way through all of Agatha Christie’s novels in publication order. If you’re interested in the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge, visit Mysteries In Paradise.

Check your local library or your local bookstore for copies of this book. Cards on the Table is also available at Amazon. (I am an Amazon Associate.)

Author

Publisher: Originally published in the UK by Collins Crime Club, 1936/ Cover on the left is a copy of the original dust jacket

My Rating: B+

Summary:  Amy Leatheran is a nurse. She’s just finished a job in Baghdad but, before she can return to London, she secures another position. This time it’s at Tell Yarimjah, an archeological dig outside Bagdad. She’s to help care for Louise Leidner, the wife of the chief archeologist.

Louise Leidner has “fancies” which means she’s afraid of unknown things. She’s also been receiving threatening letters. It’s no surprise when she is the one murdered. It is obvious that the murderer is one on the members of the archeological team. The question is: Which one?

The local police begin their investigation but the police captain invites Hercule Poirot to also help out. (He just happens to be traveling through Baghdad.) Poirot in turn calls upon Nurse Amy to be his assistant. Poirot believes nurses are good observers and so make good witnesses. She’s the one who narrates the story.

My Thoughts:  While reading this story I caught Agatha Christie’s fascination with archeology. This was a fairly new world to her. She’d accompanied her new husband, Max Mallowan, to one of the most famous digs in Iraq where he was assistant to the head archeologist. Ms. Christie based her story’s setting on that dig.

Although she was fascinated, she was not a blind observer. She saw all the details and tried to paint a realistic picture of life at the dig and in the area. She told her readers what Baghdad was like by using Nurse Amy. Here is Amy’s opinion of Baghdad, which I think is Agatha’s opinion:

“The dirt and the mess in Baghdad you wouldn’t believe – and not romantic at all like you’d think from the Arabian Nights! Of course, it’s pretty just on the river, but the town itself is just awful – and no proper shops at all.”

Agatha Christie also modeled the murdered victim after a real person on the dig — the wife of the head archeologist. The woman “was a charming, creative. but imperious woman who ruled with an iron hand her husband and all his archeological associates.” (page 123 of Gillian Giles’ Agatha Christie: The Woman and her Mysteries) Because Ms. Christie couldn’t rock the boat against the wife of her husband’s boss, she found another way to get even. I think she had great fun “killing off” the woman – only in print, of course.

Murder In Mesopotamia was a fun story to read. I liked the voice of Amy Leatheran. It was not quite so heavy-handed as some of Ms. Christie’s other narrators. This book won’t fall into my list top Christie reads, but it was still a good mystery.

Here are my challenge statistics: 24 down – 63 to go. I read this book as part of the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge. I’m reading all of her books in publication order. For more information on the challenge, visit Kerrie at Mysteries In Paradise.

Check your local library or your local bookstore for copies of this book. Murder in Mesopotamia is also available at Amazon. (I am an Amazon Associate.)

Although Poirot has had similar letters in the past, he takes this one seriously. I think he has a hunch and his friend Hastings thinks it’s instinct. But Poirot says it is “knowledge–my experience–that tells me that something about that letter is wrong.”

And, sure enough, someone named Ascher is killed in Andover. There are no credible suspects. Then someone with the last name of Barnard is killed in Bexhill-on-the-Sea followed by Sir Clarke’s death in Churston.

There are only a couple of clues. One are the letters that come to Poirot several days before each murder. The other clue is a railway schedule – the A.B.C. schedule – that is found by each of the murder victims.

I found this mystery of Agatha Christie’s different from her previous novels. It had the feel of a story about a modern serial killer. I thought we might go all the way to Z. For a while there I think Poirot thought that too. But then several things came together – the police, clues from local citizens, the family members of the victims banded together, and then, of course, Poirot’s genius – to save the day.

Everyone thought this was the work of a madman but it was plotted so well and then clearly executed. Everyone was stumped, including me. The ending made me say: That’s why I read Agatha Christie!!

This is Book #23 in my plan to read all of Agatha Christie’s stories. If you’d like to join in the challenge, you can find more information here: Agatha Christie Reading Challenge or click the button below.

Agatha Christie Makes a Mistake

Agatha Christie is well known for her “locked door” mysteries. Death In the Air is a version of the locked door. Passengers are in the air flying from France to England. During that flight a woman is murdered and everyone on the plane is a suspect, includine Hercule Poirot.

The victim, Madame Giselle, was poisoned with venom from a South American snake. The poison was at the end of an Indian thorn supposedly sent via an Indian blowpipe. The how-did-it-happen was, for me, a bigger mystery than the who-dun-it.

In the first few chapters the reader knows the archeologists have pipes, the doctor has a flute, plus there are two long cigarette holders. I couldn’t see how any one of those objects could have been used to send a poisoned dart through the air. Also, wouldn’t someone have seen an object flying through the air in a small airplane? A diagram was provided showing the arrangements of the chairs and the passengers. I studied and studied that diagram trying to figure it out.

I’m not the only one stumped by this puzzle. Readers in the past, many of them experts on the subject, pointed out that this type of poisoned dart requires a very long blowpipe. No way could that be easily hidden in the airplane. Agatha Christie actually acknowledged this blooper. She supposedly makes fun of herself in a future story. For some reason I feel better knowing that the great Agatha was human after all.

There were lots of clues and evidence to be pondered in this book. Death In the Air was a good mystery for the arm chair sleuth. By the time I got to the end, figuring out who the killer was was anti-climactic. Death In the Air is one of the books I read back in my teens when I was really obsessed with all the Agatha books. (Reading all of them again is just a mild obsession.) I remember this book, probably because of Christie’s mistake, but I didn’t remember the ending. As I said before, it was more about how did the killer do it.

I’d recommend Death In the Air to anyone who is interested in a classic, vintage mystery.

My Progress In the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge:

Many of you know I’m attempting to read all of Agatha Christie’s books in publication order. I am now 22 for 87. I’ve noticed a difference in Ms. Christie’s last four or five books. They seem to be a bit more clever, more sophisticated. My opinion is that Agatha was happier and much more confident. By this time she was divorced from Archie Christie and happily married to the archeologist Max Mallowan. Her books were doing well and I guess you could say, she was in her prime. These are certainly the best ones I’ve read so far.

If you’d like more information on joining the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge click the Agatha button above.

Author

Publisher: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1935

Genre: Cozy Mystery

My Rating: C+

Murder In Three Acts (or Three Act Tragedy) is considered one of Hercule Poirot’s stories but I think it’s quite a different role for him. He’s always been the keenest observer of little details, but that’s to be his major function in this story. Well, that as well as solving the mystery.

Mr. Satterthwaite, who I first met in The Mysterious Mr. Quin, is also a good observer and student of human nature. He manages to play a key role in this drama. And, I really mean drama. The story is set in three acts and the action would be well suited to the stage.

Synopsis:

Mr. Satterthwaite is a guest at a house party given by the stage actor, Sir Charles Cartwright. On the first night, as guests are sipping cocktails, the local minister suddenly becomes ill. Within two minutes he is dead. Everyone present, with a couple of exceptions, believes he died from natural causes.

A few weeks later, at another house party, another man dies. Sir Charles, Mr. Satterthwaite and M. Poirot were not at that party, but some of the other guests were at both parties. Since Sir Charles and Mr. Satterthwaite were two of the people who thought the first death was suspicious, they are now convinced the second death is related and that both were murders. Sir Charles takes on the role of lead detective and actually stage manages all the drama. But, in Act Three, M. Poirot solves the crime.

My Opinion:

I must confess that this story is not one of my favorites from this beloved author. I’ve actually been trying to read it for over two months. I thought, at one point, that perhaps I was burned out by reading so many Agatha Christie novels all at once. I hope it’s just this story. It was very slow going throughout most of the middle two-thirds of the book. I couldn’t get excited by all the high drama.

The one thing I loved was the character of Mr. Satterthwaite. He’s quiet, unassuming, and there’s even a bit of rascal in him. Mrs. Christie often shows his thoughts and I could say, “Yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking.” Unfortunately, he only appears in one more short story.

So, am I giving up on my challenge to read all of Agatha Christie’s books in order of publication? No way. I still have some great ones left to read, or re-read. Up next month is Murder In the Air. This is one I’ve read before and is one in which Agatha Christie made a mistake. Stay tuned.

If you are interested in joining the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge, click the button or the title.

For a copy of Murder In Three Acts, check your local library, local book store or Amazon. (I am an Amazon Associate.)

Author

Publisher: Originally published by Odhams Press in 1933 in the UK. Published in the US by HarperCollins in 1964.

Genre: Mystery

Format: Hardcover

Source: Library

Short Synopsis:

This is a book of twelve short stories all written in the 1920′s and published in magazines in England. What is unique about these stories is that none of them are detective stories. Rather they cover tales of ghosts, seances, haunted houses, and other supernatural occurrences.

Why I Read The Book: I’m determined to read all of Agatha Christie’s books in order of their publication date.

What I Liked:

There was only one story I liked. It’s the exception to the whole collection and doesn’t really fit.  It’s Witness For The Prosecution. It’s the story of a man accused of murder. His attorney believes in his innocence but his wife, his only alibi, refuses to back up her husband. It’s a good story and was later turned into a play and then a movie. I’ll be reviewing that later when I get into books written in the late 1940s.

What I Didn’t Like:

I really don’t like all the otherworldly stuff and especially not in an Agatha Christie book. If she were alive, I’d tell Ms. Christie to go back to writing good mysteries that involve people that are normal, well, you know, like the ones that kill people. I have a hunch that Ms. Christie liked the weird stuff. This is the second book I’ve read so far that featured seances. (The first was The Sittaford Mystery.) I think she must have participated in quite a few.

My Rating: C-

Recommend?

No. If you are new to Agatha Christie, don’t start with these stories. Start with Murder At The Vicarage or Murder On The Orient Express. Now if you are a lover of eerie stories, then you might like this collection.

I read this book as part of the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge. For more information, click on the button below.

Check your local library for a copy of this book. It’s also available at Amazon.