Aothor of the Week : Agatha Christie

When we mention a whodunit we automatically think of Agatha Christie .

No fine technologies , no sexual descriptions , no gory violence . Can such books sell ?

You BET . This was the woman who PROVED that they CAN and by the millions .

Dame Agatha Christie deserves a standing applause by us for having that unique place in literature ..........she carved a niche for herself that no one else could .

In fact , Agatha Christie mentioned this in all her books ..........that for a book to be exciting , sex , unnecessary violence and gore is not needed . She felt it 'vulgarizes' the book . A lady every inch the way , her ladylike books enthralled the most intelligent of men .

Shuddering at the cheap fascination for blood , gore and sex , Agatha Christie dismissed it as dramatic and vulgar .

I bow before this unique personality whom I adored and constantly re read whenever I am having a black day . They never fail to perk me up .

Let us discuss her books , Her characters .............Hercule Poirot , Jane Marple , Mr Quinn , Tommy and Tuppence Beresford , Mr Robinson .............Let us discuss this author and pay her a small tribute .

So Lets Start .

Ok another good author.

memories more recent.

loved agatha christi - both books and movies. though I hav t say whle I love both books and movies in general I would end up watching a movie adaptation even if the book is more availabel. Amnot very imagintive and so It feels nice to visualize the plot, the characters and the tension (even if from the POV of another). And here shamelessly I must admt I watched more Agatha than I ead.


of her two main characters I like Poirot the most. I guess this is where reading a book comes in more handy than a movie (to deal with situations where u do not like the director's POV). Generally speaking, I find Angala Langsbury really really irritating. She overdramataizes eversituation. no subtlety. Agatha was a good writer so I guess Miss Marpe though nosey wold have ben more tolerable right? who knows I might still read them.

Poirot though was another matter eh. Prefferred Peter Ustinov's portrayal better than David Schute.
Favourite one was Death on the River Nile and Murder on the Orient Express. Many more I will putdown later


just love whodunits -be it agata or hitchcock or erle stanley gardner or athur conan doyle. problem is I remember which 1 I enjoyed but not the plots

man oh man,i LOVE Dame Christie's books..hercule poirot being my fav sleuth of all times..simply cudnt fathom the way his mind worked..and i liked him much better thn Miss marple..he had more humour in the character and his sleuthing style was more dynamic..my personal favs are the same as Hope's..Death on the Nile and Murder on the Orient Express..i even hunted down the games of these books and played thm to death.. the first book of hers i read was 10 little Niggers/And then there were none..played THT game also..(am a RPG fan u see)..and i must have slept wid the light on for atleast 2 days after tht..tht book was chilling..

and even today u see any movie or tv show whodunnit and u can SEE the plot being picked up frm a Christie original..i esp her short stories of poirot..almost all have been used up..
my current fav crime series,"In Death" also has a story totally inspired by her and the male lead actually tells the female lead how Dame Christie wud have loved her..lol..i liked the informal tribute there..

Oh yes, loved her books. One of my favourites was `Death on the Nile', I really felt for Jackie in that book, and also 'Murder in Mesopotemia', the archaeology one. I liked the later Miss Marple books because it was endearing to see the old lady from another generation trying to accept the new generation, although sometimes out of her depth. Poirot's later books don't hold that charm though, like the `Third Girl', I felt she was trying to describe a life she didn't really understand.

About her characters, I found it interesting how her very good-looking guys were always weak, if not outright criminals, something to do with her unfaithful first husband perhaps. And she turned the `dumb blonde' concept on its head several times by showing pretty, apparently empty-headed women who were smarter than they looked and used the apparent dumbness as a weapon.