Agatha Christie: Weaving Together Her Own Unique Mysteries

Many of you may be wondering why I am reading a Halloween book for Christmas. Sadly, I started this book back in October for my Halloween book for the year, and between teaching at Williamson College and tutoring at NGenius, I guess this got put on the back burner. I will say, however, that I have been reading other things too, so I can't be accused of being lazy. Well, maybe I can, but that's another story. Spoiler alert: No spoilers except for the first line here: A girl is murdered at a Halloween party, and Hercule Poroit is called in to investigate. That's all the plot you get. There are a couple of things that I noticed stylistically that I'd like to point out about this book:

1. Christie's mystery writing is distinctly different than modern mystery writing: namely, there is little to no exposition and no red herrings. This mystery is jam-packed with pretty much non-stop investigating. Most modern mysteries spend a little time for exposition on the characters and a little bit with setting. There is no exposition for characters in this. It is pretty much pedal to the medal investigating by Poroit, so in that sense, there was more plot than a typical mystery, but much of the plot centered around Poirot investigating and gathering information rather than other events happening like more crimes, or separate plot elements to try and create a red herring if that makes sense. To that end, although it got a little dry at times, it made for a more simplified mystery, although, in the end, I had a good idea of who the murder was about 2/3 of the way through, but I was trying to figure out why and who else was involved and how it happened as the book went on. Could it have been a better mystery having a red herring or two? Perhaps, but I will say not having one made this mystery standout considerably from any other mystery I've read. In some ways that was good and in some ways it made it less interesting.

2. Christie oversaturates the book with almost too many characters. It could've been just this book, but there were a lot of characters at the start of the book who were very similar in a number of ways, and I caught myself saying, "okay, who was this one again," quite often at the start of the story. Furthermore, none of these characters develop into a viable red-herring, and so the book seems a little off-kilter because every character's just another character that we don't really suspect, and that was a bit disappointing. Most mysteries I read, characters are gradually introduced as the main character investigates, and it's clear that some characters are to be suspected more than others, and there's usually one character who is caught doing something incriminating, but isn't the murderer. This book didn't have that, and so it was a little odd. All of the characters are there when the murder happens (not a spoiler here, it happened at a Halloween party), so Christie was left with simply creating scenes where Poirot is doing his investigation--asking questions and talking mostly. This wasn't bad, but it seemed to a bit flat if that makes sense.

Many of you might say "well, duh," but I am used to the opposite approach when I write mysteries, where the main character follows up on a lead and then some action-based events occur that slowly reveal and illuminate answers to the mystery by adding plot events instead of character dialogue in which facts get relayed.. For instance, Poirot is more-inclined to sit and drink a coffee and get information in someone's study and conjecture about what happened than follow up on a lead for a location or try to determine what a particular piece of evidence might be revealing. To that end, I think you have to be a really good writer to approach the mystery story like Christie does here for it to be effective, but alas, it is Agatha Christie, so I applaud her for her very well-detailed development of facts and clues. To that end, the more characters she adds, the less plot-focused it is and more character focused, which is totally fine.

3. Christie is a wizard at delivering salient and relevant information, at the right time to keep you reading. Although I didn't necessarily go, "Oh, so that's what that was about..." at the end, I did say, a few times, "Wait a minute, so this guy works here, so that probably has to do with that character?" Notice the difference between the two? The former is more focused on giving the reader clues or just enough of a clue to get them to pause and rethink what was introduced earlier, while the latter is slowly carries along details and events that have already happened and creates plausible scenarios of things that are happening now to keep you reading--if that makes sense--as opposed to doing the big reveal at the end--I'll get to that in my next point. Not all threads connect either, so it was nice to be able to kind of sleuth and fact-check as you read.

4. The ending is less of a surprise, but more of an "Ahh, yeah, that makes sense." I was impressed with her ability to avoid the hyperbolic or farfetched plot twist as the criminal is caught at the end. Although there is somewhat of an Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock-type reveal, it is less dramatic and flows better within the actual events of the plot than most Sherlock stories. I think the reason for this is the medium of the writing. Conan Doyle wrote short stories of 8-15,000 words, and Christie wrote 50-60k novellas, so she had more room to weave a story rather than picking spots to drop clues.

Well, that's it. I was disappointed at times and pleasantly surprised at others here. I'll give this novel an A-, and I'll have to pick up another one of her books again soon. Next up: Dietrich Bonhoefer's The Cost of Discipleship.