What are your favourite and least favourite Agatha Christie books?

[AlpacaTheBags]

I've yet to read all of her books but I'm starting to reread those that I do own.

I don't have a definite favourite yet but And Then There Were None, Nemesis, Why Didn't They Ask Evans, Halloween Party and Peril At End House are up there.

My least favourites are probably The Hollow and Elephants Can Remember. I can't even remember why I disliked them but I remember feeling very annoyed and disappointed when I read them. Hopefully I'll enjoy them more second time round.

Love Agatha, and really enjoyed The Hollow.

Have you tried The White Horse? I was undecided about it tbh

The man in the brown suit is possibly one of my all time favourites. Completely identify with the heroine who blows the few pounds of her meagre inheritance on a first class ticket on a cruise liner and lives happily ever after in foreign sun drenched parts.

The worst excesses of old fashioned points of view are now mostly toned down by the publishers.

Not saying they are great literature but I find them great comfort reading. Perfect to fall asleep to, listening on audible or YouTube

Hugh Frazer one of my favourite narrators.

Favourites - Sad Cypress, Cat Among The Pigeons (love a school story), The Moving Finger, Nemesis, Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, 4.50 from Paddington. I like the ones with memorable characters.

Least favourites - those I have forgotten as they were so unmemorable. Or the characters were forgettable.

Oh, and passenger to Frankfurt.

I reread it when I was travelling on business through Frankfurt airport and felt as if I really was #winning.

I can't believe that I forgot Appointment With Death as a favourite. That was the first Christie that I read.

I’m surprised you don’t like The hollow, I think it is one of her purple patch books.

My favourite is Curtain. Very clever premise

I like all of her books but some can be a bit underwhelming. I think the film of Evil under the Sun is much better than what is quite a “thin” book for example

I really like Crooked House and Curtain.

Not keen on any of the ones featuring Tommy and Tuppence, or Death Comes as the End

Death comes as the end – I agree. It’s like nobody is left alive at the end so it’s too obvious

Have you tried The White Horse? I was undecided about it tbh

I have. I liked it but I don't remember it being a favourite. It's one that I'll have to revisit.

I forgot that the Tommy and Tuppence books existed. Those are definitely my least favourite.

My favourites are ABC Murders, Lord Edgware Dies and Murder at the Vicarage. I'm less keen on some of the more silly spy-type ones the Big Four

Bit of a curve ball but one of my favourites is her memoir where she's in syria on an archaelogical dig during ww2 "come tell me how you live". It captures mundane life from a moment in time in a byegone era and i find that sort of thing fascinating. Just small annecdotes lile her encounter with a zip i think gives a real insight and observstions of the different ethnic groups are beautifully simple.

Least fave - im not really a fan of the harlequin books at all.

@mynameiscalypso i disliked the big 4 too, i found it boring and agree, a bit silly.

I can't remember the name of it, but I read one and it turned out no one noticed the 'exotic looking' woman (original wife) was killed off and replaced with another 'exotic looking' woman (new wife). I.e all anyone who isn't white all looks the same.

I thought that was far fetched and pretty racist. It put me off her a bit.

Oh, and passenger to Frankfurt.

Currently re-reading that. It's far from one of her best, but it does feature a splendid intrepid elderly lady, which Agatha does so well.

I don't much care for Murder is Easy or Elephants Can Remember - except that Mrs Ariadne Oliver appears in both, and she's always good fun, and gives us (often humorous) insights into Agatha's approach to her work.

I think because she wrote so many books, with so many different styles and settings and central characters, one can always find something to suit one's mood at any time.

It's also interesting to come back to them having read about Agatha's own life, to see how she wove her own life experiences into her novels - poisons, travel, archaeological digs, even her own home used as a setting for murder.

I really enjoyed the 'murder of rodger ackroyd'. Meant to be one of the best murder mysteries ever! Not loving 'murder on the orient express' so far and didnt think much of 'and then there were none'.

Agree that Elephants Can Remember isn't great.

Not keen on Parker Pyne ones either.

Especially love Curtain and Death on the Nile for Poirot. A Pocketful of Rye was my first Miss Marple, but I like them all

But generally, they are all comfort reading/listening or me, even the 'bad' ones. The BBC Radio series doesn't disappoint either - June Whitfield was wonderful as Miss Marple.

Bit of a curve ball but one of my favourites is her memoir where she's in syria on an archaelogical dig during ww2 "come tell me how you live".

Yes, I like that. And her autobiography, in which she writes at length about her childhood and girlhood and first marriage, and how she came to meet and marry Max. (She doesn't write in detail about her breakdown when her first marriage broke down, and why should she, if she didn't want to.)

I can't remember the name of it, but I read one and it turned out no one noticed the 'exotic looking' woman (original wife) was killed off and replaced with another 'exotic looking' woman (new wife).... I thought that was far fetched and pretty racist. It put me off her a bit.

Not necessarily racist. Agatha uses a substitute as a plot point several times. Miss Marple says in one of her books that one elderly lady looks much like another, and tells a story of how one woman claimed her own OAP and that of another woman who had died for some time without anyone being any the wiser, because no-one looked at her closely enough to notice.

In the case of the substitute wife, I think no-one had actually seen the original wife, so had no way of knowing this was a different woman.

There’s also Destination unknown, where a redheaded woman is substituted by the Secret Service as another redheaded woman and no one is any the wiser, other than the second woman’s husband.

I love Death on the Nile, Peril at End House, Towards Zero, Five Little Pigs, Mrs McGinty‘s Dead, Murder is Easy… ah, too many really!

Dislike the later books, anything written much after mid 60s (A Caribbean Mystery just scrapes through) - scrappy, unedited and ridiculous plots and convos - ie all the rape apology in Nemesis, can’t be doing with it.

Also, Roger Ackroyd, in spite of its legendary status, just isn’t a premier Christie for me. The twist is a good one, but not one of the better stories or characters.

Roger Ackroyd, in spite of its legendary status, just isn’t a premier Christie for me. The twist is a good one, but not one of the better stories or characters.

I found it disappointing too.

The Pale Horse…

Regarding the recongnisability of people or not, Murder in Mesopotamia hinges on someone not recognising their husband from 15 years previously! I do enjoy the book for all the archaeological colour, but the plot requires willing suspension of disbelief…

4.50 From Paddington
At Bertram’s Hotel
The Sittaford Mystery
And the one set in the girls’ school, name escapes me!

I didn’t like Murder in Mesopotamia for that reason! Also not keen on One, Two, Buckle My Shoe.

I really like:
Cat Among the Pigeons.
A Murder is Announced
Death on the Nile
Evil Under the Sun
Sleeping Murder