Second on my list of favorite dime store authors is Agatha Christie. She is a genius of the mystery, usually murder most foul. While I got an early start on reading Louis L’Amour, I started reading Agatha Christie novels in high school. This delay was probably due to a few factors, not the least of which was that they were my older sister’s favorite books so I thought they were girly. In high school, after I had burned through all of my ‘Louis’ (twice, at least), I was so desperate that I picked up some ‘Agathas’ from my dad’s library. They were instant favorites.
Most Agathas include a mysterious murder and a cluster of suspects for the reader to choose from. Like all good formulas, every Agatha is different enough to tantalize the brain buds. Another important factor of is that Christie was British as they come (appealing to the Anglophile* in all of us). Christie also created two of the more memorable detectives in mystey fiction, Miss Jane Marple and Monsuir Hercule Poirot. Both are eccentrics who are easy to love. Still, the best part of every Agatha is the solution.
Of course, the attentive reader has an opportunity to solve the crimes. All the characters are gathered. All of the evidence has been presented. Usually, I am so excited that I do not even stop to figure out the cases, but when I do, I have noticed some simple trends. The guilty always seem to be easily dismissed and sufficiently minor to be the obvious choice, and yet, I have never solved a mystery. Some of my favorites include The ABC Murders, Murder on the Orient Express, And Then There Were None, and At Bertram’s Hotel. Expect features on these and others in the near future.
* Correction: This post originally said ‘appeals to the anglophobe in all of us’