This month’s SBC reading recommendation is Agatha Christie.
Murder mysteries are a popular because they provide comfort. There is danger on the page but we know the case will be cracked and the villains caught, which is rather nice when the world around us is much less certain.
The 1920s to 1930s is described as the ‘Golden Age of Crime’. The murder victim is killed off swiftly with little description of the scene, instead the focus is on the, often amateur, crime detectives. These clever characters rely less on forensics, and more on observing suspects and clues which provides the reader with a puzzle to solve along with our sleuthing hero.
Agatha Christie aka the ‘Queen of Crime’ she wrote some 66 mystery novels and over a hundred short stories in her life. Her characters include Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple, and her works have been turned into radio plays, stage shows, movies and TV series. In fact her play The Mousetrap is the longest running show in the West End.
2020 is the 100th anniversary of her first book being printed – The Mysterious Affair at Styles - which introduced the world to Hercule Poirot for the first time. Reading older fiction like Christie isn’t without flaws. Modern attitudes to people have changed a lot since she wrote her first book 100 years ago. Things like homophobia, racism, sexism, anti-Semitism (seriously all the-isms) are sometimes jarring to a reader today but they are part of the world they were writing about, just as much as afternoon teas, servants and serving soldiers. Not only do they paint a picture of a society we no longer live in but I find they help me to see how far we have come, even if we still have some distance to go.
Agatha Christie is one of the favourite writers. Her books are short, fun to read and she writes puzzle crimes – where you are left feeling sure if only you’d paid more attention you could have solved the crime. You can read The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie for free as it's now out of copyright or if you’d rather listen to it catch ‘Phoebe Reads a Mystery’ where you will find a full audio version.
Find out more:
You can find out more about Agatha Christie at agathachristie.com they also have a 2020 reading challenge with titles being suggested from across her work.
All About Agatha is a podcast all about the novels and short stories of Agatha Christie – warning this is a book discussion podcast so make sure you have read the book before listening.
If you want to know more about Agatha herself and the social world of the Golden Age detectives then listen to ShedunnIt. It includes episodes on different authors (including Christie) and themes in these novels such as LGBT characters and food. It’s spoiler free usually so even if you haven’t read the book yet you can give it a go.
You can also catch Christie's work on TV. ITV show some regularly and you can catch some episodes on the ITV Hub. As these stories don't have a an over reaching arc you can just watch them out of sequence and still enjoy a complete story.
Agatha Christie's Poirot
Agatha Christie's Marple
Other people to read:
Other Golden Age authors to try:
Margarey Allingham
Ngaio Marsh
Dorothy L. Sayers
Josephine Tey
Modern Authors to try:
Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens
Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowtiz
Modern genre to try:
Cozy Crimes - murder etc. occur off page, amateur detectives solve the case and it takes place in a small community.
