A question for Agatha Christie fans!

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I read a lot of Agatha Christie innmy early teens. The Miss Marple books were my favourite.

My nearly 13 year old DD is an avid reader and I thought she might like to try an Agatha Christie novel.

It’s been a long time since I read any - can anyone suggest a good one to start? Something particularly engaging? (I was going so say gripping but that’s probably the wrong adjective!)

Did you know the BBC have restored and remastered all 12 TV Miss Marple's featuring the incomparable Joan Hickson? Available on Blu ray and DVD.

But only if you live in America. Been out for a few years now. Bloody ridiculous. I've contacted the BBC to find out why this is more than once and never received a reply. I've got them all on DVD from years ago but have seen examples of the remastering - it's astonishing, they look brand new.

The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd.

Body in the Library is fairly short so might be a good starter. But I do love a Murder is Announced and The Mirror Crack'd.

I second five little pigs, I have just re read that (next book for the all about Agatha podcast) and had forgotten how good it was.

ABC murders for sure and perhaps Peril at End House.

@Pinkkahori She was lovely. Just the same as Miss Marple. They used our kitchen for the scene where the young girl has been put in the kitchen and a very dramatic scene near the end (won't spoil the storyline!!)

I love Christie and I’m a late 90s baby so don’t get the ‘dated’ thing at all.

I loved them all

I was another early reader of AC in the early 90s and devoured them all. I think I'd start with one of the more 'straightforward' Poirots or Marples - Evil Under the Sun is a personal favourite, or The ABC Murders. After the Funeral is very clever as well, and Death on the Nile. Some of the standalone books are excellent, but they tend to be a good bit darker than the Poirot/Marple ones.

The dated parts can be really useful for showing how society has changed, especially the impact of the second world war on social structures. The blatent racism can be very jarring but it does reflect some very common attitudes.

I agree. It is so dated the attitudes are very alien, i think it's interesting in its own right.

I don't get this 'dated' thing at all. By that reckoning we shouldn't read any older literature, presumably, so that's the end of Jane Austen, Dickens, Shakespeare, most English poetry and the Bible. Chuck most of the contents of the National Gallery and the British Museum on the fire. Don't bother listening to Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. Bulldoze Westminster Abbey and all the other great cathedrals. Break up the stones at Stonehenge for rockeries.

What a wonderful world it will be!

I agree. But have you read the famous five? I loved them as a child hut now they just make me cringe.

I recently re-read The Man in the Brown Suit - as a Christie fan I definitely agree with the above that it's shockingly dated, even allowing for the attitudes of the time.

I loved some of her ones set in the Middle East like Murder in Mesopotamia. I also liked the one set in ancient Egypt, Death Comes As the End.

Agree about Famous Five! Enid Blyton hasn't worn well.

I've read just about everything Agatha Christie read. The later novels are very poor. Clearly by that stage she was sending in her manuscript and there was minimal editing because the publisher knew anything with her name would sell. Her glory days were the later 1920s through to the mid 50s. My absolute favourites are Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Murder on the Orient Express and And Then There Were None. Lots of other cracking whodunits, though. I'm not a fan of her 'thrillers', e.g. Tommy and Tuppence. Far less successful.

Good to see so much love for Cat Amongst the Pigeons! I love that one.

I love them all as a teenager. I think I also found I could cope with the idea of reading about murders much better because the books were so obviously not set in my own era. That made them far less scary. In contrast I still get scared reading modern thrillers as it seems like it could happen to me! And when a book scares me it means I can't get to sleep which defeats the point of reading at bedtime! I appear to be the only wuss on this thread who thinks this though?? Anyone else??