genre books tend to get a bad reputation, on account of appearing superficial. but the more agatha christie i read, the more i see important psychological and sociological insights in her writing. "appointment with death" has more to do with dysfunctional families than with sleuthing. the murder seems entirely incidental to the story. and it's not just the mystery genre - or, indeed, just christie - that works this way. if verne and wells are any indication, science fiction is likewise a means of dissecting sociological/political themes.
anyway, one well-documented characteristic among the more interesting fictional detectives is that they're sort of rogues - their relationship with the established process of law enforcement is a precarious one. holmes, poirot, marple, and even house all fall into that category. i haven't read enough of arthur canon doyle's work to say if this part is also ubiquitous, but it is absolutely fascinating to me how often in hercule poirot's "practice" the murderer manages to escape charges by committing suicide, suffering from a terminal illness, or ending up in a fatal accident. agatha christie just didn't seem all that interested in legal procedure, though the importance of justice was underscored in all her mysteries. indeed, she gave tacit (and sometimes reluctant) approval to vigilante justice in at least three of her novels.
i've been collecting the poirot books for years now, and when i got to 24 out of 39, i realized that the editions i wanted were no longer in print. i'm determined to get all the titles, one way or another, in close-to-similar-editions. my most recent acquisition was "dumb witness" which involves a posthumous letter, a rich spinster, and an adorable dog named bob.
owned
read
missing!
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
Murder on the Links (1923)
Poirot Investigates (1924)
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
The Big Four (1927)
The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)Black Coffee (1930)
Peril at End House (1932)
Lord Edgware Dies (1933)Murder on the Orient Express (1934)
Three Act Tragedy (1935)
Death in the Clouds (1935)
The A.B.C. Murders (1936)
Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)
Cards on the Table (1936)
Death on the Nile (1937)Dumb Witness (1937)
Murder in the Mews (1937)
Appointment with Death (1938)Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1938)
Sad Cypress (1940)
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940)
Evil Under the Sun (1941)Five Little Pigs (1942)
The Hollow (1946)
The Labours of Hercules (1947)
Taken at the Flood (1948)
Mrs McGinty's Dead (1952)
After the Funeral (1953)
Hickory Dickory Dock (1955)
Dead Man's Folly (1956)
Cat Among the Pigeons (1959)
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (1960)
The Clocks (1963)
Third Girl (1966)
Hallowe'en Party (1969)
Elephants Can Remember (1972)
Poirot's Early Cases (1974)
Curtain (written about 1940, published 1975)
also posted at sound of laughter.
updated on 18 june 2010.
2 comments:
What are you looking at reading next? Which one do you think would be a good introduction, a good first one to read?
the following are collections of short stories:
- poirot investigates
- the labours of hercules
- poirot's early cases
if you want to quickly get a feel for him, try those! "murder on the orient express" may be the first poirot i ever read (although i had read "and then there were none" before that), and it is brilliant. apart from that, there's no harm in just going in order. if you want, i can stick a few of them in the mail! :)
i understand that "five little pigs" and "the abc murders" are both phenomenal. i may head there soon.
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