Hercule Poirot and the Stolen AIBU

[SirJamesTalbotAndHisSpeculum]

Would Poirot survive in an internet age?

What would Agatha Christie have made of it?

And can anyone explain the plot of Sparkling Cyanide to me? I have all AC's books and love to read them as I fall asleep. But I have never understood the ending of Sparkling Cyanide.

Good old YouTube and London Weekend Television! Just for you, the Case of the discontented Soldier

I love Edward

If your Spanish is a bit dodgy, try Jane

Heavens yes.

I had forgotten the terrible rhyme in the original version of ATTWN.

It wasn't that long ago that it was mercifully changed.

Re Nemesis, he definitely is the same Mr Rafiel. That was about the only thing that was kept the same as the book though — I was very confused when I saw the ITV adaptation! They moved a lot from the 20s to the 50s and changed the motivations quite often.

I have a soft spot for them though, and playing "spot the actor" is very easy satisfying. Benedict Cumberbatch, Amanda Holden, Samantha Bond, Dawn French, John Hannah...

My favourites are actually some of the short stories — The Affair at the Victory Ball (with the commedia dell'arte costumes) and the one with the Pekingese.

I have the whole set of Christie and have re-read them obsessively since childhood.

There’s a podcast I listen to - All About Agatha - which is two Americans discussing each of the books and short stories.

My favourites are Death on the Nile, Murder in Mesopotamia, Sad Cypress and The Hollow. Love a strong female character.

Christie’s autobiography and the Westmacott books are also fascinating.

David Suchet is bringing his stage show here (Australia), has anyone seen it?

• Love Agatha Christie! And Then There Were None scared me shitless when I was about 11. My other all-time favourite is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.*

Me too!

Thank you Becles !

I thought the Murder on the Orient Express with David Suchet was excellent. The filming was great. It captured the claustrophobic atmosphere and did look seriously at the question of justice.

Murder is Easy turned into a Miss Marple worked for me.

I realise that the Mr. Rafiel of Nemesis is the same character but they used a very different actor's voice in it.

The actor who played Mr. Rafiel in A Caribbean Mystery (Donald Pleasance) gave the character a slightly "common" voice (or so Miss Marple would have thought. But the voice-over in Nemesis was read by someone much posher.

Maybe Pleasance had died by then?

I am re-reading Nemesis at the moment and am not enjoying it.

Who would take on a commission to extract justice for a crime which is not described? Why does Miss Marple go on the coach tour? What makes her go and stay with the three strange old ladies?

Oh dear. Not one of Agatha's finest.

And YY to Miss Marple being transported into Murder is Easy.

it is just the kind of village problem she excelled at solving.

I have many doubts about whether Megan would really have been attractive to Jerry Burton though.

I find it absolutely fascinating that AC laid bare her life in Unfinished Portrait.

If you don't know what her early life was like you could be forgiven for thinking that the Celia character in this book is far too compliant.

Archie Christie does not come out of this book in a good light.

This has been a great thread!

My favourite is The Moving Finger, as some other posters have said further up. Excellent characterisation in this one, and a real creeping feeling of dread as the murders progress. It says in her autobiography that she rated this one too. Also really love Sad Cypress, Death on the Nile and The Hollow.

But my favourite is her autobiography, I have read it many times. Just been lobbying to stay at Greenway. I would love this so much. I really enjoy the flavour of life given in this book, despite all of the omissions etc. I was SHOCKED to realise how quickly Max remarried after her death though! TO the pp who said that they thought that he married her for her money, I don't think she had reached the real money earning at that point had she? I could be wrong.

The thing about Max Mallowan and marrying AC for her money is that she was definitely famous by the time they met and he was an impecunious archaeologist. In those days archaeologists relied heavily on private donations to get anything done. A lot of people came to his digs just to see AC and made financial contributions as a result.

He was a good deal younger than her too.

The actor who played Mr. Rafiel in A Caribbean Mystery (Donald Pleasance) gave the character a slightly "common" voice (or so Miss Marple would have thought. But the voice-over in Nemesis was read by someone much posher.

Maybe Pleasance had died by then?

Nemesis was filmed and aired a few years before A Caribbean Mystery. I'm not totally sure why, maybe it's like Suchet with MOTOE and the rights were being held by another company for years so they could adapter it at a more suitable time.

I see what you mean SirJames. Certainly she had to brave a great deal of opposition from her family who probably saw this clearly. Still, they seemed quite happy? But he did marry someone else immediately after her death.

I am probably guilty of massive romanticisation of her whole life, I have read her autobiography so many times she feels like a friend.

I think The Mirror Crack'd should be remade - after all, it's a clear explanation of why vaccination is so important.

@MitziK

I agree.

(We have to bear in mind that MMR wasn't available back in the day of course.)

The US publishers didn't like the book at all - said they could guess why the murder was committed, and by whom, from the get-go.

But they were generally on the uptight side of things where pregnancy being discussed in a book was concerned.

I haven't seen a decent version of The Mirror Cracked from Side to Side so far, so a remake would be a good idea.

HumphreyCobblers Yes - her family were very opposed to the marriage with Max.

Madge (AC's sister) had a son who had been at Oxford with Max (or was it Cambridge?)

Anyway - Madge thought Max was too young for Agatha, and that he was a fortune-hunter.

To be fair to Agatha, she was genuinely interested in archaeology.

Yes - Max married Barbara Parker very quickly after Agatha's death. There were certainly rumours that he and BP were having an affair while AC was alive.

If indeed she had dementia, and bearing in mind the fact that she was s good deal older than Max, this is in a way understandable, although not forgiveable.

I always get the distinct impression that Max rather looked down on Agatha's writing, as it wasn't particularly intellectual. Some of his letters to her refer to grammatical errors in the text.

Does anybody else think that Endless Night is a frightful book?

Laura Thompson, Christie's best biographer, thought it was excellent.

For me, apart from Postern of Fate and Elephants Can Remember, the worst book is Crooked House.

Oh I see what you mean! I'm not sure I've seen the television A Caribbean Mystery actually. Nemesis is a bit odd — there are some good bits (I like the idea of a mystery on a coach tour, where you can have a much bigger "set" with the same small cast) but it didn't feel as tight as the others and there was an awful lot of luck!

I always thought that the pharmacist Mr. Osborne, in The Pale Horse, was a very frightening character.

Apparently AC modelled him on a real pharmacist she had known.

I always found Mrs. Oliver to be a very annoying character too.

Probably she was based on AC herself.

@minou123 This is the one I have. It’s a bit pricey at the moment on Amazon but I think it’s on EBay for less. Many happy Sunday afternoons ahead! These days I’m lucky to get about 3 minutes into something before one of the children wakes up/needs the toilet/falls over

Have they used a picture of Sean Connery instead of Albert Finney on the cover?