Scariest book by Agatha Christie, IMO? "And Then There Were None".

I read ATTWN on holiday, reminds me of blazing hot sunshine but feeling cold and goose-pimply all over when I got to the end. Great read.

what???

Vintagegardenia - it was a corn knife - ie a knife for cutting off corns from your feet, not a corn on the cob knife - unless they changed it in a later edition because they didn't think modern readers would know what a corn knife was.

Actually, talking about things being changed in later editions, I was rereading 'Destination Unknown' the other day & in the original edition there was a scene where a woman was eating her dinner in a hotel 'with a Penguin book propped up in front of her' - in this edition, it has been changed to 'a Fontana paperback' (guess who published this edition?)

It doesn't sound right somehow.

I love her autobiography - have you read 'Come tell me how you live' which is about the years she and her second husband spent on archaeological digs in Syria in the 30s.

I have just got into AC again and am working my way through loads of second hand ones I got in Hay-on-Wye on holiday.

I used to prefer Miss Marple but lately I have been re-reading Poirot and got quite into them. I have noticed loads of overlapping places/people which I haven't in the past.

The film Agatha about the days when she disapeared (sp) in the 1920's is worth seeing too. Vanessa Redgrave and Dustin Hoffman.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0078736/

HumphreyCobbler - I re- read Elephants can Remember or whatever it is called the other day (I have not read AC for years), and I decided that Ariadne Oliver was AC herself so I'm glad someone else thinks so too. Also agree that her autobiography is a really good read _ I think I enjoyed her books more after reading it and discovering where lots of her ideas had begun.

I would love a steamedtreaclesponge.

I had some Fontana ones but also the classic dark green Penguins printed on v. thin paper.

The books I grew up with were published by Fontana and the images on the front covers were exceedingly gruesome.

This one - A Caribbean Mystery was especially nightmarish

I used to love AC in my teens, loved the clothes in the adaptations and the cliffside hotels in Greece and so on.

Not the scariest exactly but an image I have never been able to get out of my head is from Lord Edgware Dies - he is found slumped over his desk in the library (natch) and has been stabbed with a corn on the cob fork. Vivid, vivid image for me.

(Having written this out, will probably turn out to be completely wrong book or different implement - having been haunted for 20 years by a mistaken image ).

Aha, just you wait...

Yes, Gareth wrote that one.

Was it they who wrote the Agatha Christie episode in Dr Who? I really enjoyed that.

Now that I find impossible to imagine.

Did you know Steven Moffat and Gareth Roberts (Doctor Who writers) are doing a Sherlock Holmes TV series brought into the present day for 2010? It has "walking that fine line between genius and disaster" written all over it...

Do agree about Joan Hickson, can't bear to watch any of the others.

Joan Hickson is the definitive Miss Marple.

I'm annoyed by ITV calling it "Marple". What, do they think viewers can't cope with a woman detective being called by an old-fashioned title? They couldn't get away with "Ms Marple" so they just dropped it altogether?

I've been thinking about how they change the adaptations and I suppose one reason for it is that in lots of Marple books she doesn't actually appear very often. I re-read The Moving Finger yesterday and I think she's only in about three scenes - she asks a couple of questions and then explains it all at the end. I suppose viewers might get a bit annoyed if they settled down for a nice evening of Marple-watching only to find she doesn't appear until the last 15 minutes!

Julia McKenzie is taking over the role of Marple, apparently the shows (ITV1) have been seen in either Canada or USA already, but I don't know when we will see them, the first series of episodes with her in comprises -A pocket full of Rye, Why didn't they ask Evans (not a Marple book) and Murder is easy. I don't know when they will be shown in the UK, they ahve started filming thesecond series of episodes with JM!.
I don't know if JM will be any better than GM, although I have seen pictures and she does fit in more with the image of Marple

I assume we are no longer allowed to refer to "And Then There Were None" by its original title? What would happen if we did? Would we end up in the Daily Mail?

Anyway, yes, it's very good. Excellent how she keeps the murderer's name until, literally, the last page.

I have always had a soft-spot for "4.50 From Paddington". Read it at about the age of 15 and was impressed that the murderer was, well, someone not telegraphed. Although the method of discovery was a little contrived.

One I guessed was "They Do It With Mirrors". Just made too obvious, with the breathlessness etc. As was "At Bertram's Hotel" - too many clues (the dim light)...

God, I LOVE Agatha Christie. I think I've also read almost all of them.

Nemesis is my absolute favourite. I love the way she gradually unravels the mystery with the 'ghostly' help of Mr Rafiel at her side. Very scary - I think it's one of the few AC books where you get a sense of a deeply psychologically disturbed murderer.

I love all the Marple books, I think she's a wonderful character. I love the way she's unshockable and is so much more than the fluffy old lady that she first appears.

Sleeping Murder also excellent. I enjoy Poirot but not so keen on Tommy and Tuppence. Cards on the Table is a great Poirot/Ariadne Oliver story.

And Then There Were None probably the most frightening. I'd like to see a new TV adaptation of that one. Endless Night is also very dark indeed.

Have just re-read the Parker Pyne stories which are much more comedic and lighthearted.

I'll give a vote for Sleeping Murder! I met Joan Hickson when they filmed The Moving Finger at my parents farmhouse. The daughters body was dragged across our kitchen floor by the stepfather and put in a prop gas cooker! JH was lovely by the way very like her MM character!!

AC adored Joan Hickson apparently and I thought she really was the incarnation of Miss Marple that I had in my head. The Geraldine McEwan remakes were absolutely dreadful.

I read them all mainly in my teens (though my first was The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and other short stories when I was 8). Should really go back and read some of them again.

Scariest? Nemesis did it for me - never have liked clematis.

Oh, I love Cat Among the Pigeons too, and The Moving Finger. And Hercule Poirot's Christmas. But I also love some of her silly spy ones like The Secret of Chimneys and the Seven Dials Mystery. I'd be hard-pressed to find a favourite!

I always thought Mrs Oliver was based on herself too.

Is the gill of pickled shrimps somewhere in the Thirteen Questions?