Any Agatha Christie fans about?

[wineoclockthanks]

I read them all avidly about 40 years ago and am rediscovering them via Charity shops atm.

One of my favourites was about a group of people living in a shared house, possibly a student house and there were letters written in green ink. I've had a google but can't find the name of the book. Any ideas please?

No spoilers please because I can only remember the murderer in a few and don't want to spoil the rest.

Interesting

Caroline Sheppard(?) In Murder of Roger Ackroyd

First one who popped in my head.

Also the Brave little girl in cat among the pigeons though I can’t remember her name

Yes she's great that little girl! I introduced my dd to AC by watching the tv adaptation of C Among the P!

Meant to add, what I like best about the best books is the lifestyle they create, if that's not too rubbish a word, country houses, quaint villages, big families,etc. What other tropes are there? I've gone blank

Train journeys. As well as Orient Express, there"s the Blue Train, the 4.50 from Paddington, and the South African train journey in Man in the Brown Suit, plus all the other incidental journeys.

What I didn't know when I first read the books, but have come to appreciate later, is how much AC drew on her own experience in her plots. She worked as a dispenser in both WW, so really knew about poisons. She travelled widely, especially in the Middle East, and had been to most if not all the places she writes about. She uses an archaeological expedition as a background a couple of times.

There's a standalone, Destination Unknown, which I suspect might be the nearest A.C. ever came to writing about her breakdown after the break up of her first marriage.

Oh I love The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. I credit that book as being why I knew who the culprit was when watching The Usual Suspects.

Ooh just remembered I like the character Victoria in They came To Baghdad.

Finding this fascinating

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie

SPOILER ALERT RE: NEXT AGATHA ON TV IN 2020

www.agathachristie.com/news/2019/first-look-rufus-sewell-is-mark-easterbrook

I was going to add train journeys MarySidney but I thought that might me look like a weird (steam) train nerd.

I also like the character of Captain Hastings but that might be more about my fondness for Hugh Fraser. again.

I seem to remember he likes whats her name in the book of Murder on the Links because she does acrobatics and is all bendy, , whereas in the Suchet tv version its because she performs a sad chanson.

I love The Hollow, and remember reading it years ago and so wanting Midge and Edward to be together! I still love those two characters.

Also MarySidney and others, Katharine Harkup, who is a chemist and Agatha Christie fab, wrote a book called "A is for Arsenic" which discusses different poisons used to AC books, how the act, the books they are used in, and cases of poisoning in true crime.

My sister gave me a copy for Christmas once and it has this rather beautiful cover design:

I came on to say that Agatha & the truth about murder is on this afternoon but CoolCarrie has beaten me to it!

I think Ariadne Oliver is a wonderful character. So are Hastings and Miss Lemon. I understand why Poirot gets on with Miss Lemon but I don't really understand his friendship with Hastings or Inspector Japp. Or Mrs Oliver for that matter! Though I suspect if Poirot had liked dogs Hastings would have been a golden retriever

In Miss M I like Dolly Bantry (I liked Joanna Lumley's Dolly) but there are fewer characters who appear in more than one novel. I like Jason Rafiel as I think he and Miss M play well off each other.

That's a lovely Art Deco cover tobee and the book sounds interesting (I've just been reading the reviews on Amazon).

The schoolgirl in Cat Among the Pigeons is Julia Upjohn @WineOrGinOrBoth & @tobee Her friend was Jennifer Sutcliffe.

I've now signed up for Britbox and can report that it has

BBC Miss Marple - all 12 episodes
ITV Marple - 6 series
Poirot - 13 series

Thank you @RustyBear - she’s such a great character & so is her mother.

Christmas Eve, BBC2

11.40am Murder on the Orient Express, followed by...
1.45pn Death on the Nile

AC fan here! I really enjoy the talking books as well Often soothes when faced with a bumper pile of ironing!

Ah thanks fedup I will be recording those two!

percheron I do the same with the audiobooks. I like the Miss Marples read by Stephanie Cole - Bertram's is one of them, and Sleeping Murder as well. And Hugh Fraser reading Poirot - am just listening to Hercule Poirot's Christmas as I might have said up thread. Although it's actually not the one I thought it was when I downloaded it

I thought it was going to be The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (I think? Which is a more light-hearted one - where Poirot is summoned to a country estate for Christmas and he just worries they won't have any central heating?). Anyway it's not that, it's the one about Simeon Lee gathering his family around him for one last Christmas. Am enjoying it (of course!).

Re favourite secondary characters, well I mentioned Lucy Eylesbarrow earlier, and Megan from The Moving Finger, and Mr Rafiel. I like all of them. But I also like Hastings.

I'm sure I read a thread on here a while ago where posters were slagging Hastings off (can't remember why though)!!

@RustyBear are they showing the remastered versions or the originals on BritBox?

Not sure @ShatnersWig, I haven't watched them yet, but it does say HD and they all seem to be the all-in-one versions rather than three episodes each.

I recall a thread where there was complaints (? - maybe just one complaint, not even sure it was a complaining type of complaint!) about Hastings. It was because he's in so many TV episodes compared to the number of books.

I thought the David Suchet Murder on the Orient Express was particularly good. It caught the claustrophobia of everyone stuck on the train together. I liked also the crisis of faith and consience it causes for Poirot.

If you are looking for something else of imilar vintage then the Josephine Tey books are very good.

For television detectives the Unforgotten series are excellent (and apparently there is a 4th in production). Available on Britbox.

There are six of the most famous Agatha Christie's for 99p each on kindle store today - enjoy

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/browse/?ie=UTF8&node=4725112031&ref=OcttDotdC83vvv10233bb4d&pffrdp=a5299ea8-9e32-5687-a323-f1548c2b2e23&pffrds=merchandised-search-8&pffrdt=101&pffrdi=266239&pffrdm=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pffrdr=D4JFKZA2GSQE8JFRFAX9&pffrdr=D4JFKZA2GSQE8JFRFAX9&pffrd_p=a5299ea8-9e32-5687-a323-f1548c2b2e23

The one thing which really annoyed me about the television adaptations of the Poirot short stories was the portayal of Miss Lemon. She was completely unlike the Miss Lemon in the books! Quite glamorous with bobbed hair and makeup, adding pert little comments to any conversation, joining in the adventures readily......I used to drive DH mad by saying every time we watched one "That is just NOT Miss Lemon!"

The Edward Petherbridge versions of Lord Peter Wimsey similarly got Miss Climpson wrong. She was much too attractive. Very annoying, DLS described her really clearly, and it was all ignored.

Christie characters - Colonel Race turns up in a few books. Strong silent type, well travelled, bit of a man of mystery who pursues international criminals and has connections to Intelligence.

I just went to my BritBox app and searched Miss Marple and Joan Hickson and could only get results for 4.50 from Paddington Must be doing something wrong!