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My 52 Weeks With Christie: Shorts - Barrows

The Tuesday Night Club: Case #2 - The Idol House Of Astarte

AKA: The Solving of Six, The Evil Hour

Series: A Miss Marple Short Story by Agatha Christie

First Published: 1928 in the Royal Magazine (UK) & Detective Story Magazine (US)

Summary: This is the second case for the Tuesday Murder Club and it is laid out by Dr. Pender, who attended a house party in the country - where during a highly charged dramatic moment by a debutant - in a very suggestible atmosphere, a man was murdered. But does the solution lie within the supernatural or in human hands?

Review: I enjoyed this story a whole bunch. The focus of this story seems to be on atmosphere and how it can affect responses in people. In this story it was a place which seemed to hold a sense of malevolence which permeated everyone who entered it. Christie was able to create a definite atmosphere/feeling in her story without falling into the pit of impending doom (when you read impending doom think of the Scooby-Doo villains moaning about the sleuths’ “impending doom”and that is the pit I am speaking of). None of the characters ever thought that a murder was going to take place that weekend just because there was a spot on the estate which felt creepy. This is a fine but important distinction as many authors stray over this line without realizing it using far too heavy a hand in their foreshadowing and give the whole game away!

This sense of atmosphere really reminds me of a novel she penned thirty-two years later, The Pale Horse, which created a similar menace between its covers. Once again the feeling of the supernatural pervaded the story - yet the solution, means and motivations are startlingly mundane. In both these stories she used this writing device masterfully!

Favorite Quote:

“There are certain places imbued and saturated with good or evil influences which make their power felt”

Random Fact: On the estate where our poor murdered fellow lived was something he was immensely interested in called a barrow. Now if you are not English or into archaeology, this particular term might not be exactly familiar to you. It certainly wasn’t to me, I got it mixed up with the name Burrows - which is the name that graced the Weasley abode in Harry Potter - hey, I was really tired, give me a little break here! But I digress. The term refers to a “heap of earth” which conceals prehistoric tomb. Which would have done a number to the warm/cozy atmosphere of the Weasley household, you know having skeletons and weapons all over the place. The one on the estate in question was from the Bronze Age, which would be a round barrow as bronze artifacts were found inside and that was the style of the period. The picture below is of English barrows.

Photo by Jim Champion from Wikipedia

While barrows litter the UK and Europe (evidently they are one of the most common archaeological types due to their simple construction), they aren’t the most interesting places for archaeology in the UK, in my opinion (which is probably worth about as much as the paper this is written on)! London is where it’s at archaeologically speaking!

Why you ask? London is one of the oldest continuously occupied capitol cities in the world (and just like New York in the US) people have been drawn like moths to it for centuries. With such a steady and sometimes huge influx of people over the years - plus the fact they live practically on top of one another (like in NY in the US), they have left all kinds of stuff behind them. According to an article in National Geographic, London sits on top of - on average - thirty feet of layered detritus - which is very exciting for archaeologically minded folk!

Even more exciting? The famous English damp weather, plus the Thames and its sisters. Why? The damp and soil consistency allow many items which normal erode away over time in other areas of the world to be preserved there. Leather, wood and metal objects come out of this muck and dirt in far better condition than anyone would normally expect them to, thereby allowing us to understand historical events/monuments even better than we did previously.

Right now is an especially exciting time for archaeologists because there are a number of monster-size civil engineering projects, large structures going up and other buildings being torn down all over the city. These allow access to previously inaccessible archaeological layers! One of the most fascinating openings is London’s first municipal cemetery, which was situated outside Bedlam hospital, where up to 30,000 people were buried on a single acre. This was the final resting place for victims of the plague, political agitators, working poor and anyone else not deemed fit enough for a normal churchyard! Most of its inhabitants will never be identified, however they are giving insight into the London during the periods in which they lived. So of you are like the fellow in Miss Marple’s mystery, to London you must go!

My 52 Weeks With Christie: A.Miner2016

My 52 Weeks With Christie - Short: Sprinkles

My 52 Weeks With Christie: The Tuesday Night Club (UK)

Also Known As: The Solving Six (US)

Series: A Miss Marple Short Story by Agatha Christie

First Published: 1927 in The Royal Magazine UK

Summary: Raymond West and a few friends have gathered at his Aunt’s house for dinner, drinks and conversation. One of the guests is a former commissioner of Scotland Yard, and Raymond (and the other guests in their turn) claim that each of them are as well (if not better) suited to solving crime as the inspectors of Scotland Yard. So Raymond proposes that they meet weekly and pose to the group a crime of which they have knowledge of (and the solution to) and let the group chew it over and try and solve it.

Our first crime covers the murder of a wife, where the husband is suspected but no one can prove he did the deed!

Review: The first thing I feel compelled to do, even if those of you may already know this fact, is point out that The Tuesday Night Club short stories are where Miss Marple makes her first appearance in the Christie canon! Now you may wonder why I am harping on this...Well, in doing research over the past couple of years I have discovered a number of websites and articles out there who publish - inaccurately - that the 1930 mystery Murder At The Vicarage is our fluffy spinster’s first appearance, which it is obviously is not as these shorts appeared about three years earlier. I think the confusion stems from these writers only looking at when the collection of short stories was first published as a compilation piece in 1932, The Thirteen Problems (UK) - without looking beyond this point at when each individual story first appeared in print. I realize I am harping on this point, but it chafes each time I read about another spinster detective and her author who someone claims that Christie “borrowed” the idea of Miss Marple from. I guess I am a bigger fan than even I realized!

Overall I liked this story, I think it is great how each person overlooks Miss Marple and her experience. I don’t believe it is a sexist thing as some would first point out - but more of an ageist issue. The dinner guests cannot believe that this elderly, “sheltered” white-haired knitting spinster could have any acquaintance with the dark and sinister underpinnings of life? So they are completely taken aback when she want to put forth her own thoughts on how the murder was committed. Which is absolutely great fun to read! I cannot wait to read the rest of the stories!

*Bit of a spoiler ahead, you can put the method together if you read further on.*

Favorite Quote:

“...so many people seem to me not to be either bad or good, but simply, you know, very silly.” - Tuesday Night Murder Club, page 4

Random Fact: Sprinkles. Seriously one of the best baking inventions ever! They brighten up cookies, cakes and ice cream making them look so happy, festive and a bit carnival like! I love these little bits of sugar just in case you couldn’t tell. The thing is when I was reading The Tuesday Night Club there was a reference to something called hundreds-and-thousands which topped a trifle and I had absolutely no idea what Christie was talking about! Which made the solution to the story just a bit confusing - until I used the trusty internet to figure out what Christie was referring to!

Well as it turns out just like the cupcake - which is called a fairy cake in the UK - sprinkles also go by another name in the UK and taste as sweet! While I am sure this information will not surprise any of you, what we call sprinkles are also known as hundreds-and-thousands in the UK.

But if you’d like to be completely technical the name of this type of sprinkle is actually called Nonpareils, a French term which means “without equal” referring to their use on cakes, confections and candies, making them look fantastic. Up until the early 19^th century, the sprinkles were pure white, as the colored ones are a more recent invention. It is thought that these sprinkles probably evolved from the pharmaceutical use of sugar back in the day (before the 18^th century-ish). However their origin is still a bit uncertain until they started appearing in recipes, of which we have a number still survive from this period- which is rather fortuitous.

So while reading the The Tuesday Night Club (the 1^st story as well as the name of several of the compilations, just to keep things straight) keep this little tidbit in mind and I think the solution will be a bit clearer for you, than it was for me in the beginning!

My 52 Weeks With Christie: A.Miner©2016

My 52 Weeks With Christie: Classics Corner: Mignon Eberhart

Mignon Eberhart 

B: July 6, 1899 - Lincoln, Nebraska  D: October 8, 1996 - Greenwich, Connecticut 

Marriage & Writing

In 1923 Eberhart married her husband Alanson (in 1948 she divorced him for two years, married someone else - then divorce him and remarry Alanson- they remained together until 1974 when he passed away, they were buried next to each other after Eberhart died in 1996- so that's her complicated marital history). The role Alanson played in Eberhat's career is linked, in a roundabout way, to his own work as a civil engineer.   

Because Alanson's work was project based (meaning there is a start point and end point, which could last several years, but eventually he would find himself out of work until a new assignment was found) they would move frequently all over the country from one project to another. This slow wandering proved to be beneficial to Eberhart's writing. First and foremost it gave Eberhart the impetus to write her first full length novel. She'd grown up listening to stories told to her on her mother's knee, it's where Eberhart's love of storytelling was born, and when she was younger she passed the time writing her own stories. But life intruded and Eberhart desire to write outstripped her time and her output greatly diminished, consisting mainly of short essays and articles published in the papers. So when she found herself in rural areas where distractions were few and she knew almost no one, she needed a way to entertain herself - so she picked up her writing again. She begun with short stories, essays and the odd novella, six years after she  married Eberhart she saw her first full length mystery in print. Thank goodness for the benefits of boredom! 

The other unexpected benefit the meandering life of a Civil engineer's wife provided was a huge variety of very different locations. Couple these lived in locations with vacations/tours she and her husband took all over the world (since he often had a bit of extra time off after a project finished and before another started), meant Eberhart was pretty well traveled. And she took full advantage of this fact in her writing, using her own observations about a place to provide the backbone of her books. Her knowledge of her settings allowed her to create a very real and accurate sense of place for her readers. Which in turn lead Eberhart's books to become known for their exotic locations, atmospheric descriptions and to have a touch of gothic ribboning its' way through them (gothic as in, when the location can be seen almost as a complete character itself in the narrative, like The Yellow Wallpaper by Gilman).  

Marriage is a funny thing - for June Wright it stifled her writing career, Patricia Wentworth's husband helped significantly with her writing process and Eberhart's played an important role as well. His career helped to provide a portion of the foundation in which Eberhart built her very successful career (plus from what I understand he was super supportive of his wife’s career as well). 

*An odd piece of trivia Hugh Hefner of the Playboy fame, was supposedly born in Eberhart's apartment (or born while they were residing there, the story was a bit muddled). It came about when she sublet her residence to his parents (his mother was an old college friend) while Eberhart and her husband toured Europe (PG. 56 of America's Agatha Christie).  

“In dreams one beats one’s hands against doors that will not open, against walls that remain impassible, against gates that are bolted. But Deborah was not dreaming” 

- The House On The Roof (Pg. 66) 

Books

Detective: Sara Keate & Lance O’Leary

1st Book: The Patient In Room 18 (1929)   Last: Man Missing (1954) 

No. of Book In Series: 7 (including 2 they made cameo appearances in) 

Detective: Susan Dare 

Short Story Collection: The Cases of Susan Dare (1934)  

Detective: James Wickwire (banker by trade) 

Short Stories included in mystery collections. 

Non-Series Mysteries: 56 

Fact

So here’s the deal, Christie is the Golden Age gold standard for what we now call traditional British mysteries (weather they were set in the UK or not, and irrespective of if the authors even lived there or not, this style of mystery and its’ authors get lumped together). She is the yard stick all others are measured by due to her skill in plotting, uniqueness of solutions, variety of detectives and the sheer proven lasting power of her books. So other authors, especially ones who published during the same period as Christie, often have their works and achievements compared to hers. But here’s the thing which gets up my nose, in the rush to claim that their favorite author beat Christie to the punch, they fail to find all the pertinent facts. 

So I am going to shout into the wind and beat a dead horse - Because evidently I am at the level of Christie Nerd I feel compelled to point this out again....

The first appearance of Miss Marple was not in the full length novel Murder At The Vicarage in 1930, it was actually in a short story, The Tuesday Night Club published in the December 1927 edition of The Royal Magazine in the UK. Many, many authors back in the Golden Age published short stories in all kinds of magazines - that’s how many authors got their start. In fact this was how Eberhart gained the notice of (and contacts in) publishing houses so when she switched to writing full length novels (after her short stories stopped selling) they were snapped up. The point here is the fact Eberhart’s heroine Sara Keate didn’t step off the page until 1929 just over a year after Miss Marple’s career had started. So Eberhart did not trail blaze a path for the female protagonist in the mystery novel - nor must I add did she claim to - it is others writing about her who have tried award her this title 

Here, I must admit for about a day I was really excited, because I thought I could credit Eberhart with creating the first female mystery writer/amateur sleuth thus giving this piece a happy ending so to speak.... In 1934 Eberhart wrote a series of short stories featuring Susan Dare (said author/sleuth) which were published in The Delineator magazine. However when I dug into the details, where the little devils live, I discovered that Christie had beat Eberhart to the punch once again. Because the first appearance of Ariadne Oliver (Christie’s not so subtle double) was not in the 1936 mystery Cards On The Table. Oliver actually first turns up in a Parker Pyne short story called The Case Of The Discontented Soldier in the August 1932 edition of Cosmopolitan magazine (their content sure has changed!). Which deflated my good intentions! But in all fairness Christie herself wasn’t the first to come up with the mystery author/detective combo. The first mention I can find of a mystery author/sleuth was a series of short stories about Richard Verrell by Bruce Graeme written between 1925-1947 (now I am only including the dates for the original hero Richard, Graeme went on to write about both Richard’s son and an ancestor at different points during his career, but I don’t believe they held the relevant occupations for what I am discussing here). For an added twist Graeme also included master thief on Richard’s resume as well as writer/sleuth, who the police turned to for help when they were out of their depth. While Graeme wrote his character as a male lead, the premise was still in print before the apple eating Ariadne Oliver graced us with her presence.

While Eberhart may not have been the first to write with a female heroine or mystery writer/sleuth (or pioneer the romantic suspense or had-I-but-known subgenera Mary Roberts Rinehart did this) Eberhart did add a great deal to their overall depth and flavor with her own unique and atmospheric style. She is a pot roast level of author, she isn’t credited with the tower heights of Christie or the bottom scraping lows others - she was an author whose overall contributions were very good (she wrote over 60 mysteries) and added quality & depth to the Golden Age mystery scene.

Okay now that I’ve gotten that out of my system I will try hard not to bring it up again.....

My 52 Weeks With Christie: A.Miner©2015

My 52 Weeks With Christie: Classics Corner: June Wright

June Wright

B: June 29, 1919 Melbourne, Australia

D: February 4, 2012 Australia

Life & Writing

I find Wright’s career fascinating! After the birth of her first child in 1943, she worked her way through her favorite authors at the local library; Christie, Sayers, Allingham and Eberhart. When she’d run through them, she decided to take a crack at writing her own novel. The other impetus for her writing was the fact Wright felt a bit stifled in her role as a stay-at-home mother and wife, and found writing was a good way to keep her mind active and frustration in check. So six short weeks after her decision, Death At The Telephone Exchange was completed (she wrote it in short bursts while her first of six children was napping). 

Then five-ish years later while wrapping vegetable scraps up in newspaper she saw an advert for a writing competition and submitted her book for consideration. While she didn’t win the grand prize - btw, no one did, as the judges decided no one’s entry was good enough to earn the thousand pound prize - the panel did recommend her book for publication. That is how Wright landed a three book deal! When Death At The Telephone Exchange was released in 1948, it outsold Christie’s thriller, Taken At The Flood in Australia, which is impressive! Using the royalties she earned, she remodeled her kitchen and bought herself a fur coat (a lady after my own heart, kitchens & clothes)!

While Wright found success in the UK and Australian, she never got a chance to break through in the US markets (which is difficult). A confluence of events in her personal life prevented her from continuing her career in writing. One of her children was born with a severe mental handicap, which took up much of her time and emotional energy. Then her husband fell ill and was unable to work for a significant period and Wright was forced to take a job which provided a much steadier income than writing (it has also been hinted that her husband wasn’t fond of her writing and it was a bone of contention within the family and part of the reason she gave it up was to keep the peace). Later after her husband recovered, he and Wright ran a successful business together and while she wrote the occasional article for a Catholic magazine (she was pretty devout as I understand) she never penned another novel.

“I often think people who use the phrase ‘I fail to understand’, understand only too well...”

- Duck Season Death

Books 

Detective: Maggie Byrnes

1^st Book: Murder In The Telephone Exchange (1948)  Sequel: So Bad A Death (1949)

Detective: Mother Mary St. Paul of the Cross (aka Mother Paul)

1^st in Series: Reservation For Murder (1958)  Last: Make-Up For Murder (1966)

No. of Books In Series: 3

Setting: Australia

Stand Alone Mysteries: 3 (ish) 

I often wonder what Christie’s career would have looked like had she stopped writing after the rather emotionally draining events in 1926, the year where her philandering husband left her for another woman (leaving Christie a single mother before this was socially acceptable) on top of the death of her mother. The year she pulled a walk-about and took a mini-break from her life (alright, a rather unconventional break, but people don’t always think straight when seriously stressful events occur!) 

By December of 1926 Christie had only written six books, the pinnacle of her career at this point was The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd, a book which I freely admit is one of her best! But would the book have stayed in the public consciousness for 87 years - until 2013 when it was awarded the title “The Best Mystery of All Time” (according to the Crime Writer’s Association)? Now remember at this point, the world the world would have to wait four more years for Miss Marple and Mr. Harley Quin to step off the page, another eight for Murder On The Orient Express, thirteen for And Then There Were None and forty-one for Endless Night. Not to mention the countless other books she would write in-between her greatest hits! Books go out of print so fast, even back then, and I am not sure this single great title and five other books would have secured Christie the reputation that she still commands today.

When I look at June Wright’s career, I think we catch a glimpse of what might have been if Christie had chosen to become a nurse instead of a novelist in 1926. I think had Wright’s life afforded her the time and space, she could have broken through in the US market, allowing her to support her family through her writing (becoming another Ngaio Marsh, only Australian). Instead Wright opted for the security of a steady pay check and went back to work at the phone company to support an ailing husband and six children. Without a steady steam of new content, Wright and her books were allowed to slip into obscurity with only a few faithful devotees keeping readers aware of her work (I am happy to say they are being reissued!). I strongly suspect that would have been Christie’s fate if things had gone just a little bit different in that crucial year. 

(But can you imagine what kind of world it would be without Miss Marple or Mr. Quin in it? I shudder at the thought!)

The Lost Manuscript

If you’ve watched the news the last few months you’ve seen the huge brouhaha over Harper Lee’s rediscovered manuscript, Go Set A Watchman. The manuscript, which Lee though lost or destroyed, lingered in her personal archive for several decades until it resurfaced a few months back. Similarly (though with a bit less pomp and circumstance, which I think it warrants) a new Dr. Seuss book - complete with illustrations called What Pet Should I Get? was found. This new book (as well as unfinished text & art for two more) was found in some boxes his widow discovered when remodeling their home right after he passed away in 1991. Unfortunately they were shuffled aside until 2013 when they were unearthed again. Christie, Doyle, Hammett, and a whole slew of others have had new works rediscovered in the back of filing cabinets, dusty cupboards or in an attic in recent years, much to the delight of their fans!

Why is this relevant? During Wright’s lifetime, six of her books were published - but the thing is she actually wrote eight books altogether. One of her two unpublished books, Duck Season Death, was rejected by her publisher* based on just three reader’s critiques (seriously three, you’d think they would have at least had a few more!). The publisher might also have been a bit hesitant to publish it since it didn’t feature either of her previous established detectives. Evidently Duck Season Death languished in the bottom of a desk drawer until her family found it and it was finally published (for the first time) in 2015. 

Now here is the interesting wrinkle to the story and if you are doing your arithmetic you will have noticed Wright has one unaccounted-for manuscript. The Law Courts Mystery was written in 1952 and was rejected by the publisher, due once again to those pesky critical readers who enjoyed the book but thought her plot spoiled it (which seems a bit contradictory to me). After this unceremonious dismissal, the manuscript was stashed away somewhere and forgotten, and her family has been unable to locate it since.... So if you read Wright’s books and become a bit of a fan (like me) you can hold out hope that one of her numerous children, grand-children or great-grand children may one day rediscover The Law Court Mystery and if we are lucky - very, very lucky! - one day we will have one last June Wright book to read!

*Now I feel like I must defend my girl here! Publishers reject manuscripts all the time, even from established authors. Michael Gruber recently had his magnum opus rejected by his agent and editor (he’s trying for a rewrite, but I am not sure shaving 100 pages from a 900 page draft will cut it). Early on in Agatha Christie’s career she had several rejected (albeit she really hated the publisher and may have tried to nudge them into dropping her). Dune, Catch-22, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Carrie, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, A Wrinkle In Time were all rejected by at least one publishing house or another before they found a home. So no judging because two of Wright’s works got refused! She is fantastic!

My 52 Weeks With Christie: A.Miner©2015

My 52 Weeks With Christie: Classic Corner - Georgette Heyer

Georgette Heyer 

B: August 16, 1902 Wimbledon, England - D: July 4, 1974 - London, England

Life & Writing

Heyer’s career started at seventeen by telling a series of stories to her sick younger brother to entertain him. Her father, who was a writer himself, enjoyed hearing them and eventually asked her to write them down so she could have them published. Over the years Heyer dabbled in different genres: mystery, contemporary, Georgian, but what she is best known for is her Regency Romance novels. A fan of Jane Austen and her world, Heyer became an expert in this time period due to her meticulous research for her novels. While she thought much of what she wrote was fluffy, she knew they were popular escapist literature. Couple this knowledge with having a husband (plus two brothers and the odd aunt) to support she continued writing them.

During her career, one rather interesting stance took root, one which I find absolutely astounding in this day and age of rampant social media - her refusal to promote her books in any fashion. This attitude came about through her staunch belief that her life was her own and should not be open to her fans or critics to intrude on (the same struggle that today’s celebrities face). The General Strike in 1926 solidified her thoughts on the uselessness of publicity. These Old Shades, released during the strike, received no coverage in the media and still sold a decent number of copies. So in 1926, five-ish years after beginning her career, she refused to grant any further interviews or do any personal promotion for her publishers, maintaining her books sold just fine without it and was a waste of time - she stuck to her guns for the rest of her days.

While she did not go in for self promotion, her books were still wildly popular - even the Queen & her household are rumored to be fans! What I find interesting is the fact that she wrote over 50 books, founded the Regency Romance subgenre and put historicals on the map, but she was universally ignored by the book world. Deemed to be just a “genre” writer (a term which I find absolutely pompous and condescending), her books were never critically reviewed in any major publications and when she died in 1974 from lung cancer (she smoked 60-80 cigarettes a day, which is wow) Encyclopedia Britannica failed to mention her at all. This lack of recognition never seem to bother Heyer; the only thing that counted was that her books continued to sell in ever increasing numbers.

 “As soon as one promises not to do something, it becomes the one thing above all others that one most wishes to do” - Venetia

Books

Detective: Superintendent Hannasyde

1^st in Series: Death In The Stocks Last: A Blunt Instrument

No. of Books In Series: 4

 

Detective: Inspector Hemingway (overseen by the above Superintendent)

1^st in Series: No Wind Of Blame   Last: Detection Unlimited

No. of Books In Series: 4  

 

Stand Alone Mysteries: 4

Other Works: 42

Short Stories & Essays: 17

Setting: All in England (as far as I know)

I must admit a bit of a fan of Heyer’s mysteries (now). They were a collaborative effort, her husband wrote a bare bones outline while Heyer did the heavy lifting of fleshing them out. Towards the end of the book, it is rumored, she would ask her husband to re-explain the ending he’d sketched out so she could write them correctly. The sales of her mysteries never came close to the popularity of her historicals, but the numbers were respectable enough that she kept turning them out. 

What I find interesting is the fact her mysteries have been widely lampooned by critics over the years, with complaints that her plots are unoriginal, filled with stereotypical characters and used the same motive for 58% of them. True. But, and I must stress this, they are pretty good. I wonder if the critics were being overly harsh on Heyer’s books because they were comparing them to others being published at the time - the four Queens of Crime, Sayers, Christie, Allingham and Marsh - were at the heights of their careers (generally speaking) publishing startlingly new twists, codifying the golden age of detective fiction and generally being brilliant. These were the authors Heyer was releasing against and, to be fair, many authors would fall flat by comparison to these ladies (and btw Heyer’s mysteries are better than some of Christie’s doozies like Passenger To Frankfurt or The Mystery of the Blue Train).

What I enjoyed was exactly what grates on the critics' nerves: her characters' interactions, irreverence and humor. No, Heyer’s mysteries never won an award and some of what the critics accuse her of is true - however they are still highly entertaining reading and I don’t think I wasted a moment that I’ve invested in her books. And I feel compelled to point out that a book does not have to be bleak, dramatic or revel in the human condition to be worth reading - you simply must enjoy it for it to be worthy of your time and Heyer is definitely worth my time! 

My 52 Weeks With Christie: A.Miner©2015

Classic Corner: Margery Allingham

Margery Allingham 

B:May 20, 1904 - London, England - D: June 30, 1966 - Essex, England

Life & Writing

A fourth generation writer, Allingham became a professional writer at the tender age of eight (wow) when she was published by her aunt. She studied drama and speech in school (to help overcome a childhood stutter) but continued to write. While she found artistic fulfillment in her novel writing, early on in her career she still needed to write on spec & commission to earn her daily bread. The main issue here is that these pieces were subjected to editorial scrutiny and change - which is never any fun!  

Then she and her readers were introduced to a Mr. Albert Campion in 1929 in The Crime of The Black Dudley - the one and only time Campion was relegated to a minor role. He might have remained there had he not caught Allingham and her editor’s eye and both decided they liked him so much he became her main protagonist! Entertainingly enough, in Campion’s early career is thought to be a tongue-in-cheek homage Lord Peter Wimsey by Dorothy L. Sayers. Similar to Wimsey, Campion is the younger son of a noble family (though Campion is somewhere in line for the throne) which he is estranged from (due to an aunt’s “corrupting influence”) who finds himself in situations where solving the mystery at hand is important. (Random Fact: it is rumored that Sayers and Allingham lived half mile from each other for a good portion of their adult lives - however they supposedly moved in very different circles and didn’t meet often). However Campion quickly grew out of Wimsey’s shadow and established his own reputation and place in the golden age of mysteries.

With Campion as her break-out character, Allingham was able to focus more on her artistic endeavors, while taking on commissioned pieces only when she wanted. She continued to write up until her death in 1966 from breast cancer.

“There are, fortunately, very few people who can say that they have actually attended a murder.” - Death Of A Ghost

Books

Main Detective: Albert Campion

1^st in Series: The Crime At The Black Dudley (1929)   Last: Mind Readers (1965)

(There is a bit of grey area here - the above are the 1^st and last written by Allingham herself. Her husband completed her book Cargo of Eagles (at her request) which was unfinished at the time of her death. He then went on to write two more books in the series before he passed away in 1969 - leaving his own unfinished Albert Campion novel. It was stuck in a drawer until 2014 when Mike Ripley - who is evidently a huge fan of the series - completed it at the behest of the Allingham Society. His book was so well received that Ripley was allowed to write his own Campion novel, Mr. Campion's Fox slated to be released this June! So the number of novels & where you'd say the series ended is, well, a bit squishy - so I stuck with the books completed by the great lady herself!)

No. of Books In Series: 18 novels & 22 short stories   Setting: UK primarily 

A Strange Coincidence

A plot spoiler below if you’ve not read Traitor’s Purse.

Did you know that Lord Byron originally coined the phrase, the truth is stranger than fiction? It has been updated over the years to fit our current concept of grammar but Byron’s quote from Don Juan still holds true. I think it is the only way to explain how not one but two mystery authors stumbled onto and unknowingly exposed government secrets - both English & German - in the same year!

In 1941 the world was smack in the middle of WWII and two Queens of Crime penned novels patriotic in theme. Christie wrote N or M  which put MI5’s knickers in a twist when she named one of her main characters Major Bletchley. They were afraid she knew something about the code breaking activity at Bletchley Park and was baiting the government about it. As it turns out she spent a frustrating afternoon in the Bletchley train station and took her revenge on it by naming her least likable character after it. Much to the relief of all.

In strange twist, Margery Allingham also exposed a government plot in her 1941 book Traitor’s Purse - only in this case it was a German conspiracy! I kid you not! Campion discovered a plot to distribute counterfeit currency in order to tank the English economy, so that her allies will no long want to do business with her because the currency is worthless thus making it that little bit easier for England to fall to the Germans.

This was the similar line of reasoning used in real life by the Germans when they set up Operation Bernhard, a State sponsored counterfeit ring. They started planning the operation in 1939 but were really in the swing of things by 1942 when they had printed just shy of 9 million notes with a face value of around 135 million pounds in 5, 10, 20 & 50 pound notes. While 9 million is a startling number, the actual number of bills which posed a real threat to the country was much smaller. The Germans had a difficult time in the beginning replicating the paper the currency was printed on (due to wartime shortages), inks and engraving plates (they drew from the concentration camps for their forging labor force, so the learning curve to create convincing counterfeits was steep). But eventually they got things sorted out and were ready to distribute their fakes into England. 

There was a fly in the ointment however; the plan which Himmler was rumored to favor, was to have the Luftwaffe drop the notes over major cities in England. The Germans theorized that the Bank of England’s credibility would be completely undermined if they refused to honor currency by claiming that it was counterfeit - since the fakes were what we now call Super Bills - fakes so convincing only banks & experts could suss them out. The problem came when Goering told the Himmler’s SS that the Luftwaffe no longer had enough aircraft to carry out this type of operation, forcing them to shift tactics and supply their agents with the fake money to launder. Which was a lot less efficient method of distribution!

(an example of one of the forged notes.)

There was another problem which the Germans were unaware of.....Allied spies reported the conspiracy in 1939! So the Bank of England took measures to counteract this particular German effort. In 1940, they created a special blue 1 pound note with a metallic thread in it to raising the difficulty level of forging it, thereby discouraging any counterfeiting efforts. By 1943, the Bank Of England had also stopped issuing any bill above a 5 pound note - seriously - plus they slowly removed all of the higher bills out of circulation. Both of these efforts helped to stem the tide of the fake money making its way into economy. Because the government knew of Operation Bernhard, they were able to identify enemy operatives by - you guessed it - their possession of large numbers of these bills! Thus significantly hindering their planned method of dispersal. (The other factor which saved the English economy was the pressure the Allies were putting on the German front - which made them move the operation several times which caused massive disruptions.)

By 1945, Operation Bernhard was abandoned, presses were dismantled and crates of currency destroyed (the laborers from the concentration camps fared better as they revolted and the camp they were being held in was soon liberated!). Well, the equipment was sort of destroyed. It is theorized that the Germans dumped the remaining crates of currency, presses and plates in Lake Toplitz in the Austrian Alps. Divers did recover a bit of money from the lake, but nothing on the scale which Nazi records indicated that they printed. And this is where we see the birth of all kinds of fiction/conspiracy of lost Nazi gold/wealth. Because it is extremely difficult to extract anything from this particular lake (which is probably why it was chosen). Why you ask? (well you may not have asked, but you’ve stuck with me this far!) The lake’s maximum depth is 103m however after 20m there is no oxygen, which means when things sink in the lake, they don’t decay. Which would be great for treasure hunters since there is a good chance that these bills would be in at least o.k. shape. The sticky wicket here is the fact that there is a layer of sunken un-decayed trees/logs half way down in the lake, which makes it difficult and/or impossible to explore the bottom of the lake. Many divers over the years have perished trying to map the bottom by getting tangled up by them. 

While Christie's encounter with MI5 is well documented, I couldn’t find any information on if Allingham’s Traitor’s Purse caused any kind of kerfuffle among the Nazi brass when it published. She obviously had a really plausible plot and a better way of distributing the fake cash (in my opinion) than the Nazis did - it's a good thing they didn't have more time to consider her (sort of) suggestion! I would have loved to have been fly on the wall in that meeting when/if the Nazis became aware of Allingham’s book...She might have made them sweat!

My 52 Weeks With Christie: A.Miner©2015

Classics Corner: Ngaio Marsh

Ngaio Marsh              

B: Apr. 23, 1895 Christchurch, New Zealand - D: Feb. 18, 1982 Christchurch, New Zealand

Artist & Actor

While Marsh is best known for her Detective Roderick Alleyn series, her talent wasn't contained to just the single discipline! Her original ambition was to be a painter, which is what she originally studied while in college (and evidently she was pretty talented). While she was pursuing a career as a professional painter, she had an opportunity to tour with the Allan Wilkie Shakespeare Company which she did for about a year, then followed up with another tour by a comedy company. This cemented Marsh's love of theater which continued through the rest of her life.

Throughout all of her other artistic adventures Marsh was writing; articles for papers, poetry and stories - culminating in the invention of her sleuth Roderick Alleyn. Marsh followed the old chestnut of "write what you know" so Alleyn found many of his investigations in and around (though not exclusively) the theater, actors or artists. Even in his private life Alleyn couldn't escape the artistic influence; early on in the series he dated an actress and later married a famous painter (who was most active in helping her husband solve mysteries).

This balance between writing and the theater continued throughout the rest of her life and she was the the primary force behind the establishment of New Zealand's theater scene. In fact the University of Canterbury named their theater after her to pay homage to her tireless efforts and support of the stage. Marsh never married or had children - I suspect she may simply have been too busy!

“There are people to whom one need not show off. It’s a great comfort sometimes.” - Vintage Murder

Books

Main Detective: Roderick Alleyn

1^st in Series: A Man Lay Dead (1934)    Last: Light Thickens (1982)

No. of Books In Series: 32                  Setting: England primarily

Queens of Crime

Marsh is considered one of the four original Queens of Crime (Allingham, Christie & Sayers were the others) during the Golden Age of Detective fiction in the 1920's and 1930's. While the other three were British, Marsh divided her time between England and New Zealand and Alleyn solved the bulk of his mysteries there as well.

What typifies these fine ladies is the fact they codified detective fiction; violent murders take place off stage, no hard boiled characters, harsh language is a no-no and the people involved are generally somewhere among the well-to-do or aristocracy (the middle class & poor were occasionally used for plot devices but not generally featured). In addition, the ladies generally followed the Rule of Fair Play, rules written up by the Detection Club which allowed the audience a fair chance of solving the mystery (there are exceptions to these rules with startling results like Christie's Endless Night, Crooked House or And Then There Were None but generally these ladies followed the rules).

Accolades

March 1966: Became Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

1978: Won the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America.

2010: Ngaio Marsh award was established; celebrating crime writers from New Zealand.

My 52 Weeks With Christie: A.Miner©2015

My 52 Weeks With Christie: John Connolly Interview

Thank you John for answering these questions for the blog!

If you'd like to know more about John Connolly and his books click here to go to his website or come in and meet him in the shop on November 10th!

1. How did the character of Charlie Parker form for you? Did you write some unpublished stories about him first, create extensive notes about him, or was the process more organic and he has slowly come into focus for you throughout the series?     

I'm not much for planning in advance.  I started the series - and my fictional writing, after years of writing only journalism - with what became the prologue to Every Dead Thing.  I just knew that it would concern a man who loses everything, and both the grief and the terrible liberation that might come with that.  After all, if the worst happens to you, then what have you got left to fear?  

2. Christie is said to have loathed Poirot from very early on in his career. Do you like Charlie Parker as well now as you did in the beginning? 

I understood him from the beginning, which is the important thing.  I knew why he was the way that he was.  There are two responses to great trauma.  One is to want others to suffer like you have done, or at least not to be unduly troubled if they do suffer, because you want others to feel the way that you do, and understand your pain, and suffer a little too.  Then there are those who, because of their own suffering, will do anything in their power to prevent others from suffering as they have, and the name we give to that is empathy, I think.  Parker starts out in Every Dead Thing as the first kind of individual, but ends the book as the second.

3. Christie wrote in a series of notebooks where she honed ideas for her mysteries, and a number of unpublished short stories were found within them. When you pass on at the ripe old age of 147 do you think scholars are going to find a trunk full of unpublished works - a western, poetry, cozy or perhaps the Great American novel (hehehe since you know you're Irish)? Since you are known for writing short stories and such (or at least among us)... 

No, I tend to be very disciplined about my work, and I leave nothing unfinished.  Everything I've written has been published.  No, hang on: there was one story for Nocturnes which I set aside because it didn't quite work, but that's it.  My cupboard will provide poor food for scholars when I pass on.

4. What do you find it easier to work on, short stories, novellas or full length novels? 

They're all very different disciplines.  Realistically, the novel is most difficult because of its length, and the discipline and commitment required to finish it, especially in the face of the doubts about its value that a writer will always have while working on it.  As for short stories, the more of them I write, the easier they become, but I tend to go through phases with them.  I've been fortunate to have had a few ideas for them over the past year or so, but until then I really had written very few of them since Nocturnes.

5. You have written non-fiction, young adult, kids and adult fiction - which would say is the most difficult to write? And Why? 

I tend to approach them all in the same way.  Whatever I write tends to be the thing that is nagging at me most profoundly at the time, and I view it simply as the book that has to be written.  The issue with books for younger readers is that they are adults in the process of formation (we're all adults in the process of formation, though, or should be), and they're not as far along that path as the rest of us.  On the other hand, they haven't given in to the moral grey areas that adults occupy, and their concepts of justice and injustice are less equivocal and compromised than ours.  The difficulty comes AFTER the books have been written.  Younger readers don't read reviews, don't look at book posters on subways, and when you go to a school to talk to them, you're just about better than math, at least until you start talking, and then math may start to look more appealing.  I think you have to work harder to bring young readers in, but it's very fulfilling if and when you do.

6. How did you tackle putting together all the pieces for Books To Die For? For Bonus Points: How did the idea for this great book on books come about? And is there a sequel in the works?         

It was the hardest thing I've ever done, and I think Declan and Clair would say the same.  The real difficulty lay in having to fact-check all of the essays, and put together bios of the authors in question.  That was hugely time-consuming.  As for the idea, I think we just wanted to give readers a basic guide to the genre, and writers seemed like the best people to ask.  I don't think a sequel is a runner, really, although I do wish that we'd managed to pull in more writers for whom English wasn't a first language.  Books To Die For was aimed at a very niche market, and will never make any money for the publishers.  Everyone involved did it as a labor of love, which is great.  These things are good for the soul.    

7. Agatha Christie is called the queen of poisons since she used them often. Do you have preferred method of murder in your books? And why?  

Gosh, I've never really thought about that - which is probably a good thing.  Because my novels have a hint of the metaphysical or supernatural to them, I think I can get away with doing some things that a more traditional mystery would tend to shun.  The Wolf in Winter has a pretty unusual death about three-quarters of the way in.  I don't think I've ever encountered one similar to it in another mystery, for good or bad...

8. While not an extensive reader of Christie's mysteries, is there any book or solution of hers you wish you'd thought of first? 

I think we all look at The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and consider it a marvel of narration.  Okay, there is some sleight of hand involved, but still...

9. How do you think Christie influenced the modern mystery novel? 

Surprise.  We all want to wrong-foot the reader to some degree, and have him or her finish the novel with the sense that, well, they hadn't seen coming whatever the end was...

10. Any Final Words?

Don't trust anyone who dismisses Christie.  She was far more subversive than she's often given credit for, but in many ways the least interesting thing about her books is the solution.

Monday November 10^th at Noon - John Connolly signs The Wolf in Winter

Prosperous, ME, is as wealthy as it sounds and guards itself carefully. It doesn’t accept strangers, only begrudgingly allowing tourists to come to look at the ancient church, moved there and reconstructed stone by stone, from England. But there is something ugly and morbid going on – a dead hobo and a missing girl – and PI Charlie Parker is heading their way. The results ripple far and wide. 12th in the series by the Irishman, a series highly recommeded by JB, Fran, and Adele.

My 52 Weeks With Christie: Jane Haddam Interview

Thanks once again to Jane Haddam for taking the time to answer my questions!

Want to know more about Jane and her books? Click here to go to her website!

1.Your new book, Fighting Chance, is coming out in September. Is it just as thrilling to get a book published now as it was in the beginning of your career?

Good question.  It certainly never gets old.  And I really love this cover.  But with a first book, there's an element of passing into a new phase--of being really published and being really a writer that you don't get later, because by being published you've sort of settled that question.

I think the reality, for me, was that I never expected it to happen.  I never thought I was all that good of a writer, and mostly I still don't.  So there's a part of me that is always just a little shocked that anybody would want to publish these things, and even more shocked that anybody would want to read them.

2.You are closing in on your 30th novel with Demarkian, anything special planned? 

For the 30th? No.  But the 29th, that's the one that's coming out in September--yeah, there are a couple of surprises.

At least, I hope they will be surprises.

I also tend to think that everything I write is really obvious, although from the mail I get, apparently not.

3. Christie is said to have disliked Poirot, from very early on in their career together. Do you like Gregor Demarkain as well now as you did in the beginning of the series? Bonus Question:  Is there any character you have hated writing about, but did anyway, because he was important for the mystery? 

I like Gregor a lot.  Always have, always will.  He's sort of a combination of my father and my late husband, William L. DeAndrea. 

And there isn't a day that I don't wish I could talk to both of them.

As for writing characters I don't like--I do it all the time.  The Demarkian books are all multiple viewpoint, which means that for most of those books I'm in the heads of the suspects, and suspects tend to be suspects because they're really not very nice people.

It's not so much that the plot requires the characters.  It's the characters who require the plot.  I always start with characters.  I start with people and everything goes from there.

And,yes, a lot of those people are really unpleasant.  Sometimes I get really shocked at the way people behave, or confused by it, and then I try to see if I can get into their heads and understand the way that might work.

4.Christie followed (and seldom ignored) the Rules of Fair Play in her books. How important do you think the Rules of Fair Play are in mystery writing? And how strictly do you adhere to them in your books? 

I don't even know what they are.  I've got a book in the house somewhere that has them listed.  It's a book of essays on mystery writing by various people, including the famous one by Edmund Wilson about how awful and drecky the genre is.

But it always seemed to me that having a bunch of rules about how the story is supposed to go makes the story artificial and unspontaneous.  If that's a word.

And Christie may have thought she was following them, but The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was a deliberate rejection of them.  And I think she was right to do what she did.  It made that book a classic.

5.Like Christie, your books are often called cozy, but that term doesn’t seem to really fit either of you anymore - as the cozy definition seems to have morphed into meaning ones which are cuter or have a theme. Would you place you mysteries in different category, or do you think there should be a new one created to contain your style of mysteries?

There used to be a category called "traditional," and that's what I always thought I was writing.

I never did like the term "cozy."  It DOES sound "cute," and not only do I not write cute, I mostly don't read cute.  I think there's something off-kilter about writing about death and destruction and crime and devastation as if it's trivial, as if you could joke your way through it and it doesn't really matter, or doesn't have long term effects on the people involved.

On the other hand, I do read a lot of what people call "cozy," which are not that kind of book.  The term (cozy) seems to be a stand in for "not a lot of graphic violence."

And if I don't do cute, I also don't do a lot of graphic violence.  I can never see the point.  The whole thing where a writer goes on for six pages about how the murderer cut a slit in the victim's gut and the entrails spilled out and--it just feels to me to be mostly boring. 

Which probably sounds very weird, but it does.  It's like my least favorite parts of Harry Potter movies, the Quidditch matches.  Everybody's running around doing things, and I can't for the life of me figure out why.

So--is Martha Grimes cozy?  Anne Perry? Louise Penney?  Because if they are, then I probably am, because I think that's basically the kind of thing I do.

6. Christie was fond of using poisons as a murder weapon; do you have a favored method of murder you like to employ in your books? And why?

I've got a tendency to shoot something and leave it at that.   Poisons are very tricky.  Not everybody reacts to every substance the same way.  You've got all these considerations, and you have to juggle them or you end up sounding like an idiot, and then people write you e mails.

But I use poisons sometimes. 

Mostly I just try to make sure that my murder methods would actually work.  The murder method in Sayers's Busman's Honeymoon almost certainly would not have worked.  And although I like that book, every time I read it, I sit there going:  hmmm....

7.Is there anything about Christie's mysteries or plot devices which you dislike or find annoying? 

No.  There's a book, though, that I found absolutely incredibly bad, and Christie was almost never bad.  It's called The Big Four, and it's so awful, I sometimes wonder if somebody else wrote it and she published it under her name to do that someone a favor.  The plot is--I don't know what to call it.  Hercule Poirot has an evil twin.

8. Is there any book in the Christie cannon you wish you had thought of first? And Why? 

Well, Roger Ackroyd obviously.  If you go in for fair play, it's hard not to wish you'd written Roger Ackroyd.  One of the problems with writing mysteries is the expectation factor.  Readers who know the genre tend to think they know what the writer will and will not do with the plot.

It's good to blow up those expectations once in a while. 

9. Any Last Words? 

Just thank you for asking me.  I live way out in the middle of nowhere, I rarely get a chance to go into the city or elsewhere where I might see people.  It's easy to get the impression that I'm writing these things out here and nobody is reading them.

Except, of course, for the readers who want to tell me that I made a mistake on page 34, or that I must really hate everybody in Alabama because  the villain said something on page 196,   Those readers I know I have.

My 52 Weeks With Christie: A.Miner©2014

Here is Jane Haddam's new book! Out this month and it is great!

Grab a copy from us today!

My 52 Weeks With Christie: Kelli Stanley Interview

Kelli will be in the shop signing her new book on Thursday August 21^st at Noon!

Reserve your copy today!

Kelli Stanley (Click Here to Go To Her Website!)

1. You have won a Macavity a Bruce Alexander awards for your writing, and have been  nominated for a Shamus and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Is it still thrilling to get a new book published like CITY OF GHOSTS and get some really great reviews for it?

Thank you! J And let me tell you—hearing that people like what you create never, ever, ever gets old. Most creative people are incredibly insecure—I’m no exception—and at the same time we’re public figures, even if it’s on a relatively minuscule level by comparison with actors or household-name writers like Stephen King or Anne Rice.

As public figures, most authors get attacked, abused and belittled just like the “big” celebrities—except that we don’t have the paychecks to make up for the pain. We have to swallow it, and try our best to ignore it. I’m not talking about actual criticism—I’m talking about internet abuse that gets slung in the name of “review” by people who don’t know the meaning of the word.

So when someone you greatly respect, like Tom Nolan in the Wall Street Journal, or Oline Cogdill for Associated Press, or Joe Hartlaub for Bookreporter, praises your work—as has happened with CITY OF GHOSTS—and when you meet fellow writers who read you and readers who tell you how much they enjoy your books or love your writing—well, like I said: it never gets old. In fact, I think recognition becomes more precious the more books you write. And it certainly helps you deal with the more unpleasant facets of publication.

2. In CITY OF GHOSTS there is a possibility Miranda Corbie will go to London in a later book. If she does, will Mirada visit places where Christie set her books? Or possibly meet a certain spinster or dapper Belgian while there?

I’m afraid not. I don’t write the same sort of books Christie wrote. She was a brilliant author of traditional mysteries; I write literary hardboiled/noir. Although Miss Marple has always struck me as a little noir, to be honest. ;)

 Miranda could certainly encounter some of the iconic settings Christie used: the Orient Express, classic London hotels, Harrods, etc. I can see her at Brown’s Hotel … ;)

3. What do you find easier to work on, short stories, novellas or full length novels? Does it depend on the topic you are writing about? And why?

Short stories are difficult for me, because they tend to turn into novels. Macro is easier for me than micro. J

Novels are a long, long grind, but I get a chance to immerse myself in the setting and the character. Short stories require absolute, laser beam focus, and the plot and structure need to be commensurate with the length. In other words, not too complicated, more a “slice of life”. A novella is like a more complex short story, which is great, because it takes some of the pressure off, length-wise. Because I cherish character above all else (I was a drama major and an actress before I was a writer), novels are my preferred cup of tea.

4. Christie used a series of notebooks to sketch out characters, plots and ideas - what is your method of forming ideas for your books? Bonus Question - How did you form your character Miranda Corbie?

I use notebooks as well—big and little, one by my nightstand (so that if I get a sudden idea before sleep, which sometimes happens, I can jot it), some in my handbag. The notebooks themselves are usually Claire Fontaine or Rhodia, French brands with beautiful graphics and paper. Somehow, the quality of the notebook itself makes it easier for me to organize and think.

Thoughts bubble up in funny places … the bus, a shower, basically when I’m not actively trying to chase them down, so I like to be prepared.

I also use Scapple, a sort of mind-map program from Scrivener. Because I tend to draw diagrams and charts when I’m brainstorming, this little program is perfect for me, and I love working with it.

As for Miranda … well, her progenesis was a reaction to the misogyny of film and literary noir. I wanted to create a woman with all the tropes of a femme fatale—intelligence, beauty, courage, sexual power, ambition, etc.—but make her the hero and not the demonized female villain. A femme fatale in the shamus role. She was born from that thought, and took over from there. ;)

5. Agatha Christie was writing contemporary mysteries during the 1940’s, the period in which your Miranda Corbie mysteries are placed - my question is this, has Christie’s sense of this time period influenced you at all when writing your historical mysteries?

Not at all. I write in a completely different style about a completely different economic class in a completely different environment in a completely different country. Even in Christie’s war books (N or M springs to mind) the war seems rather far-off, even though the English went through absolute hell with the Blitz for more than a year and a half before Pearl Harbor brought America into the conflict.  Her goals as a writer were very, very different from mine: she wanted to give people an escape from the war in the form, more or less, of a puzzle. I want to make people aware of the past—and the cultural and political truth of the historical record. I would not be successful at my job if Christie were influencing my history in any way.

6. You noted in your essay in BOOKS TO DIE FOR that Christie’s audacious solutions have been imitated over and over again through the years, so much so that I have heard people (even avid mystery readers) call her books “derivative” even though her books are where the solutions originate, and that’s why some people refuse to read her books. What would you say to those people to persuade them to read them?

I’d tell them that they are choosing ignorance over enlightenment, which is something no reader should ever do. Agatha Christie was the inspiration behind much later imitation, like Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett in my genre. That doesn’t make her less noteworthy or even less readable. If anything, it makes her far more important—crucial, in fact, to anyone who wishes to develop a sense of how the genre developed.  She was an original; she wrote over 80 novels, not all of them masterpieces, but most of them damn fine books and all of them worth reading—the Poirots, the Marples, the Tommy and Tuppence stories, the Parker Pyne and Harley Quinn collections and non-series books. I’ve even read her Mary Westmacott romances and her autobiography. She was a great writer, period,  not just a plot spinner.

And her novels that are masterpieces—AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS, SLEEPING MURDER, ENDLESS NIGHT, etc.—are must-reads for anyone professing to be a mystery or crime fiction lover.

No, the idea of not wanting to read the original because you’ve read too many truly derivative books is inane. A book is much more than a plot twist. Why read at all, with that argument? Most plots distill down from The Epic of Gilgamesh or Homer or the Bhagavad gita or the Bible. Should we give up writing and reading?

7. Christie is called the queen of poisons since she used them so often in her books. Do you have a preferred method of murder in your books? And why?

Murders in the Miranda Corbie novels tend to be violent affairs, less planned out and more spontaneous, because that’s a bit closer to how it works in real life. Murder weapons in my previous books have involved guns, scarves, hands, knives and ice picks, and this time around in CITY OF GHOSTS, a garrote (a method that I personally find fascinating).  I don’t really have a preferred method; I try to let the weapon fit the criminal and fit the crime.

I’ve always admired Christie’s knowledge of poisons—she certainly made me beware of any “bitter almond” smell when I was a kid! And her description of strychnine poisoning is vividly horrific.

8. Is there any book in the Christie canon or plot twist you wish you thought of first?

AND THEN THERE WERE NONE. I think it’s her most brilliant work, psychologically deep. It’s also the most noirish of her novels, along with the splendid ENDLESS NIGHT (one I like to recommend to people who think Christie and cozy are synonymous.). I loved MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS, as I wrote in BOOKS TO DIE FOR—and it was also the first Christie I ever read.

9. Is there a Christie mystery which you did not like, or didn’t feel lived up to her standards?

All of the Marples are terrific. Not so the Poirots. When Agatha was going through the dark period of her life—before she married Max—her books and stories suffered, as was natural under the circumstances. DEATH IN THE CLOUDS is one unfortunate example. At her best, she combined the puzzle with psychological insight. When stressed, she seemed to just rely on the puzzle, contrivance and all. Still, with over 80 books published, she had very few misfires.

10. Any final words?

I love Agatha. She influenced me at a young age (9 or 10), and instilled in me, as a writer, the importance of psychological plausibility. It’s really not about the locked room puzzle, the circumstances and the red herrings. It’s about who is capable of murder—the most severe and heinous of crimes—and why. That’s what Agatha taught me, and continues to teach me when I read her … and I am forever thankful.

My 52 Weeks With Christie: A.Miner©2014

My 52 Weeks With Christie: Sophie Hannah Interview

Thank you Sophie for taking the time to answer a few questions about your writing and your new book The Monogram Murders - a new Poirot novel!

If you'd like to learn more abour Sophie click here and go to her site!

And don't forget to reserve your copy with us today!

Your style of writing is a bit darker than Christie's.  Even so, has she influenced your crime writing? If so, how?

Christie has been a huge influence on me - probably the hugest, though Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine comes a close second. Christie understood that the main thing a writer has to do is grip readers until the end of the story.  In the case of a mystery novel, readers should ideally become increasingly desperate to hear the solution to the puzzle.  Christie was better at cranking up the suspense and creating that desperation to find out than any other writer.  I was very influenced by her at a young age, and from her I picked up the idea that 'Who killed this dead person?' is not sufficient, not mysterious enough as a driver for a story - because let's face it, someone killed the victim, and the chances are they did it because they didn't like them very much, so ideally you need more mysteriousness than that: something hookier, more high-octane and more peculiar - something to make readers shake their heads in total and utter intrigued bewilderment because it simply looks impossible - like there being no murder suspects because everyone present is apparently dead (And Then There Were None). I think it's a direct result of Agatha Christie's influence that I always look for apparently-impossible opening scenarios for my novels. I also think it's true to life, and therefore cathartic to write and read about. I often find myself in real life thinking, 'No. No, that simply cannot be happening.' I think a lot of people must.  

You are a successful poet, children's author and mystery novelist; is there any other style of writing you have wanted to tackle and haven't yet?

Not really! There's so much more I want to do in the genres I'm writing in already - that's what I'm focused on for the foreseeable future. Though I do have a great idea for a romantic novel with a twist!

After you finish the new Poirot mystery, do you have any plans for a new Simon Waterhouse & Charlie Zailer mystery?

There's a new Simon & Charlie mystery out in the UK on April 24th: The Telling Error. In America, the next Simon & Charlie novel to be published will be The Carrier, in January 2015 - which is the one before The Telling Error. And I'm just about to start work on a new standalone contemporary psychological thriller, A Game For All The Family.

How long have you have you been thinking about writing a Poirot mystery? And were you trepidations about approaching the Christie estate with your idea?

It would never have occurred to me at all, ever! My agent suggested it, and Agatha Christie's family, estate and publishers were keen to explore the possibility further. Once I started to give it some thought, I realised that an idea I'd had for ages and couldn't make work in a contemporary thriller would work brilliantly as a case for Poirot. From then on, we were all very excited about it! Yes, of course it was scary and daunting, but there's nothing wrong with a little fear-adrenaline every now and then - I actually think it made me write a better book than I would have otherwise.

Why did you choose Poirot as your detective? He is so well known, wouldn't have been easier to write about Superintendent Battle, Tommy & Tuppence or Mr. Quin? Or perhaps a undeveloped character such as Lucy Eislbarrow (4:50 From Paddington)

Poirot and Miss Marple are by far my favourites of Christie's detectives. They're the ones I truly love, so I knew it had to be one of them, and this particular story idea was far better suited to Poirot than to Marple.

Can you give us a hint what the new Poirot is about? Or is it still top secret....

Sorry - still top secret! However, I can reveal that the title of the novel will be revealed on 7 May, and the US jacket will be revealed at the Malice Aforethought festival. 

(Amber Here: This interview was back in April before the title and cover art was revealed!)

Christie is called the Queen of Poisons, since she used them often in her mysteries. In your novels do you have a favorite method (or a method you gravitate towards) of murdering your characters? If so why?

Normally in my novels, the precise method of murder is not important at all. Stabbed, shot, poisoned...often it doesn't really matter to the story, and what's far more important is the motive, relationships, lies and truths told. In fact, my latest novel The Telling Error is an exception to that general rule. The murder victim, a controversial blow-hard newspaper columnist, has been killed with a knife but not stabbed. The knife has been stuck to his face, and the combination of the knife and the parcel tape it has been stuck on with have suffocated him. One of the big mysteries in the book is: why, if you wanted to suffocate someone, would you use something as unnecessary as a knife? And if you were determined to kill someone with a knife, then why not stab them? The answers to these questions are absolutely vital to the novel.

Is there any book in the Christie cannon which you wish you wrote first?

I'd have been pretty proud of myself if I'd thought of the solution to Murder on the Orient Express.

Any last words?

My current favourite quote from Dame Agatha: 'A man who dramatises himself is sometimes misjudged...One does not take his sincerities seriously.'

My 52 Weeks With Christie: A.Miner©2014

My 52 Weeks With Christie: Val McDermid Interview

 

Val McDermid was kind enough to answer a few questions about her writing and Christie's influence. Thank you again for taking the time to answer them!

Want to learn more about Val? Click Here to got to her website!

1. How much do your real life events bleed into your books? (thinking of Tony Hill’s knee injury, here).

Writers always mine their own lives and the lives of their loved ones. But only when it's functional in terms of the book! With Beneath the Bleeding, I needed Tony to be hors de combat, I knew about knee surgery, so it saved me having to do research. And I am very lazy...

2. You have written kids‘ picture books, noir, pastiches, women’s fiction, non-fiction and historical -- which is the hardest to write and why?

I find non fiction hardest, because the facts are a major constraint. Things don't work out in the most satisfactory of ways; you don't always find the answer you're looking for; and the characters stubbornly refuse to be manipulated.

3. How did you tackle the project of modernizing Jane Austen‘s Northanger Abbey?

I figured out which elements didn't work in the 21^st century and came up with alternatives that did work. So, for example, I realised nobody goes to Bath for the season these days. But every August, Edinburgh's population doubles for a month of festivals, where people go to see and be seen. It was the obvious solution. Once I'd sorted all those elements out, I had to develop a narrative voice that was distinct from my usual writing style, one that wasn't a pastiche or a parody but which could sit alongside Austen without jarring. That was probably the hardest part. Then I just had fun!

4. Now that you have written one pastiche would you be interested in doing another -- say a Christie perhaps? And if you hypothetically did, who would you like to be your detective?

No. Northanger emphatically isn't pastiche, it's a modern re-imagining. I have no interest in working with anybody else's detective in period. I have too many of my own books to write, and frankly, I've read too many bad versions of characters I have loved to want to add to the pile!

5. Christie was known as the Queen of Poisons. What is your favorite method of killing characters in your books? And why?

I don't have a favourite way of killing people. I don't want to sound po-faced, but I don't really see murder in those terms.

6. Your fiction is very noir and gritty in style. That being said, has Christie influenced your writing at all? And if yes, how so?

Well, one element of my work is noir and gritty. My standalones, not so much.

What I learned from Christie is how to plot. She turns a plot with more skill than anybody else. She completely understands that every element of the novel has to have set-up, development, pay-off. I studied her story structure when I was starting out writing crime fiction. She was one of half a dozen writers whose books I took apart scene by scene to see how they did it.

7. Is there any of Christie’s mysteries you wish you had thought of first?

LOL. Most of them!

8. Is there a Christie mystery which you did not like, or didn’t think lived up to her standards?

I could cheerfully live without the last fifteen or so.

9. Any final words?

The one quality of Christie's writing that is often overlooked is her humour. She had a sly, wry wit that penetrates her books and she's never praised for it. Yet it's one of the things about her work that I absolutely love.

My 52 Weeks With Christie: A Blue Diamond and Miss Marple

The Mystery Of The Blue Train  

First Published: Serialized in 1928 in The Star.  

I Read: The Mystery Of The Blue Train. New York, Harper, 2011.  

Series: Poirot  

Summary: A ruby called The Heart of Fire once worn by Catherine the Great was recently acquired by Rufus Van Aldin for his daughter Ruth. The ruby, over the years, has gathered quite a reputation for being cursed, but in Van Aldin’s eyes it seems to fade away in his daughter’s hands. Unfortunately there is plenty of fodder for the curse to work with in Ruth’s life; her marriage is all but over, her husband has been cheating, she has her own lover, there is a set of thieves after the Heart Of Fire and a mistress who would love to get her hands on Ruth’s money. When Ruth is murdered on The Blue Train there are plenty of suspects to choose from -- what the curse didn’t count on? Hercule Poirot took the same train.

Review: This book had a lot going on between the covers. Not exactly in a bad way, it was still an interesting read -- it just felt a bit cluttered. Not as streamlined as say The Crooked House, Peril at End House or The Moving Finger. Like a camera which is just this side of being focused, the picture is still a hair blurry but the subject is intriguing enough so the slight fault can be over looked. The Mystery of the Blue Train reminds me of this type of picture, you can enjoy it but find it mildly distracting at the same time. There are several love interests, a possible heist, a curse, a murder, an inheritance and a detective, as I said a very busy book. 

The Mystery Of The Blue Train contains a classic subject in mystery, the theft of a unique item - a heist, carefully planned and executed which often render the theft, even if foiled, into stuff of legend. Movies depicting these type of heists have been made by Hollywood for years; To Catch a Thief, The Italian Job, The Thomas Crown Affair and The Asphalt Jungle for example. All of these fall into the category of well organized thefts, which have their mirrors in real life: The Gardner heist, Cannes jewel heist, and any of the thefts perpetrated against Harry Winston.  

There is another side of the coin however - inelegant thefts. You can’t call them heists as they are missing the artistry, flair and creativity that are synonymous with the term "heist". No, these are simply crimes of opportunity, the complete opposite of what we see in The Blue Train Mystery. The Bling Ring, for example, owe much of their success to luck, celebrities (who ought to know better - weird stalkers abound for them and are always a vague a threat) leaving their doors unlocked and valuables unsecured. One of the most famous/notorious crimes of opportunity is The Blue Diamond Affair.  

The Blue Diamond Affair started in 1989, when a Thai worker employed by the Saudi Royal Family managed to steal two hundred pounds of jewelry estimated to be worth twenty-million dollars (btw the theft was perpetrated against the now King). The fifty carat Blue Diamond (which is larger than The Hope Diamond, currently touted as the largest blue diamond in the world - btw funny story Harry Winston donated the Hope diamond to the Smithsonian in 1958 and sent it through the mail! Anyways back to the show...) was among the stolen pieces. After the theft, the Thai worker hightailed it back to Thailand and started selling the jewelry, which sent up a huge flag, and soon after, he was arrested.

This is where things get interesting. 

Thai police allegedly only recovered a fraction of the stolen jewels and the Blue Diamond was not among them. When the pieces were restored to the Saudi royal family, the Royals claim a good portion of the jewels were fake. A year or so later on separate trips, one businessman disappeared and four diplomats who went to Thailand to investigate were murdered execution style. The jeweler and his family who purportedly replaced the fake stones for the real ones in the returned loot died under very suspicious circumstances as well.  

Beyond murder, the Saudis believe there is a full scale cover-up going on in Thailand in order to distribute their jewels among the Thai royal family and ruling elite. Pointing out the coincidence that the wives of said Thai elite started wearing some serious bling shortly after this point, including one blurry photo of the Thai princess, in theory sporting the Blue Diamond set into a necklace. 

If you think a time has dulled the rift between these two countries, you would be mistaken. In 2009, in Thailand the former police lieutenant and five policemen were indicted for the murder of the Saudi businessman. Many said this move was meant to pacify the Saudis, which was an epic fail on Thailand’s part since less than a year later, the government proposed to give said lieutenant a promotion to assistant chief of police (while still under indictment). The former lieutenant declined the position, a political decision meant to try and pacify the Saudi Royal Family again. Why you ask? Mecca is located within the borders of Saudi Arabia, and the Saudis were not-so-subtly threatening to withhold travel visas to Thai Muslims who wished to make their pilgrimage. On March 31st of this year, a Thai judge cleared the lieutenant and the five other policemen of all charges, stating there wasn’t enough evidence for the case to go to trial.The Saudis were not amused.

In 1990, the Saudis downgraded their diplomatic relations with Thailand, which remain seriously frosty to this day. Twenty-five years later the Blue Diamond still remains missing and is a huge source of tension between the two countries. The mystery is still unfolding; it will be fascinating to see if this dubious theft is ever resolved.

On the surface The Mystery Of The Blue Train and The Blue Diamond Affair sound dissimilar, but underneath I think they have a number of comparable qualities. Both are complicated affairs with many people involved, hidden motives, greed, and the acquisition and use of something which isn’t yours - plus the theft of a legendary stone (I don’t want to get too specific, because spoilers, but I maintain they are there). Sometimes it makes me wish there really was a flesh and blood Poirot. This seems like just his sort of case where his talents for discretion, finesse and little grey cells are needed to solve a mystery which has spiraled out of control.

Favorite Quote:  

“For this man, negligible and inconspicuous as he seemed, played a prominent part in the destiny of the world. In an Empire where rats ruled, he was the king of the rats.” (pg.1)  

Interesting Note: The Mystery Of The Blue Train provides us the first glimpse of St. Mary Mead where Miss Marple would come to reside. I found it exciting to read about, since we wouldn’t learn about Miss Marple’s exploits for another year or two. On a related note, since we are on the topic, you can trace Miss Marple’s fictional lineage back to Caroline Sheperd (Dr. Sheperd’s spinster sister from The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd), an armchair detective who always seemed to be very well informed on the goings on in her village, and yet never left her home. Using her knowledge of the village life to theorize the motives behind village events, including the murder of Roger Ackroyd. Christie is said to have used a portion of her ideas from Caroline and her real life Aunt to help create Miss Marple. This sort of literary archeology provides an extra level of interest in the books, since you are given a rare glimpse into genesis of a second beloved detective. 

Cheating: No cheating this time. Maybe I should upload a video of me doing an interpretive dance, embodying the concept of not cheating......Naw, I don’t think I want that following me around for the rest of my life! Plus I do not have enough rhythm to pull it of, and I am not sure enthusiasm will carry it through... 

A. Miner©2014

My 52 Weeks With Christie: Mary Daheim Interview

Mary was nice enough to take some time and answer a few questions for the blog! Thanks Again!

To learn more about Mary and her books click here to go to her website!

1.Has Christie influenced your writing and how? If so, any one particular book more than the others?  

Yes. Any mystery writer who says otherwise is lying. Even if they never read Christie she influenced them by creating a style (especially for so-called cozies) and sold enough books that her work had a huge impact on the marketplace. I should add that before there was Christie in my reading life, there was American Mary Roberts Rinehart who had a great impact on the genre--and on me.  She was published even earlier and like Christie was a world traveler and wrote in other genres.

2.Just like Sue Grafton you are rapidly running to the end of the alphabet in your Emma Lord series, you only have Z left! Any huge surprises in store with book Z? Will Z be the last in this series? Or are you plans to top secret to share... 

No secrets here--I was asked a couple of years ago by my publisher how I intended to title the post-Z books. One of my daughters came up with the idea of flipping the titles and still keeping them in alphabetical order, as in A____Alpine, B____Alpine, etc. Works for me.

3.Did your visit to Alpine last year change how you think of the town? Did it influence how you wrote about the town in Alpine Yeoman? 

The visit only confirmed what I already guessed and knew. Of course I played around with the actual setting from the start. The Skykomish River does NOT go through Alpine. In fact, my family members who lived there thought the Sky was the river that went by the town, but they were wrong. It's the Foss River, which goes into the Sky a mile or so to the west. But what was really weird was that I invented certain things in the early books, such as the cross-state power lines that went through the town. It turns out they not only exist but go over the spot where I'd put them. In the third book, I'd written about Emma finding a perfect Christmas tree by Alpine Falls, but she and her brother had to drive back to the highway to get there. Until we were driving to Alpine and my son-in-law pointed out the road into the falls, I had no idea it existed. I made some mistakes, too. I had Icicle Creek going the wrong way. It actually flows over into E. Washington. Guess I have a problem reading section maps...

The Alpine Yeoman was finished by the time I went to Alpine, so there was no opportunity to make any real changes. I'm about a third of the way though The Alpine Zen and so far I haven't altered anything, but it could happen later in the book. Because of the real Alpine Advocates, I've known for several years where most of the town structures were located. I did NOT know that the newspaper office is on the site of my grandparents' house, however.

4.You have written around 55ish books so far...do you have a favorite? And why. Bonus: Do you ever reread them?

I've actually written 61 books now, counting Clam Wake, the new B&B coming out in August, and Alp Z will be #62. I got my start in historical romance (accidentally) and wrote 7 of those books before turning to mystery.

Yes--sometimes I have to re-read some of the Alps to keep up with all the characters--and to answer readers' question as I can't remember what went on in books I wrote almost 25 years ago.

(Woops! Sorry Mary!I thought I counted correctly....)

5.Agatha Christie came to dislike Poirot over time (rather intensely apparently), are you less fond of Emma Lord or Judith Flynn after all these years of writing stories for them? Why or why not. 

I couldn't possibly dislike Judith because she's based on my cousin, Judy. Alas, Judy died last May after suffering a massive stroke. She'd been in more health for several years, but she was such a sociable animal, so brave, so cheerful and so full of fun (and curiosity) that she continued to lead a very active life. My editor immediately asked if I could go on writing the series without her. I said I could--it was my way of keeping her with me.

Emma had driven me crazy along the way, but I like her. She has the same take on life that I do in many ways, and thus is sort of an alter ego (though not as close to being me as is Renie in the B&Bs). I've been a journalist and have worked on small town newspapers, so I understand that part of Emma very well. Her skewed love life has been another matter, however, but she's finally figured it out.

6.Christie never had a book where Miss Marple and Poirot solve a mystery together (thinking Poirot woudn't have stood for Marple's suggestion). Have you ever thought of teaming Emma and Judith up together in the same mystery?

I couldn't do that if I wanted to (which I don't)--for legal reasons: Two different publishers own the rights to the characters.

7.During your writing career you have written romances and cozies--have you ever just thought of breaking the mold and write hardboiled mystery?  

I don't think I could. I have a terrible feeling that if I tried, it'd turn out to be a parody of a hardboiled mystery and might be funny--but not satisfying for readers who like the real thing.

8.Is there any Christie book you wish you thought of first? 

No--because I couldn't have done it as well as she did. But I have learned from her about how to set up a mystery with clues and red herrings. She mastered the art of misdirection--which does come in handy. I often used it. Seemingly trivial conversations are another way to deal with providing clues.

9.Any final words?

Yes. One very important bit of advice for readers new to the Alpine series. READ THEM IN ORDER. They are the saga of Emma's life and readers who come in late to the series are sometimes confused or miss out on the impact of the characters' interactions. That's not as important with the B&Bs, which are more episodic and less character-driven.

-Mary Daheim

New Poirot Title Revealed

 

My 52 Weeks With Christie: Hazel Holt Interview

Hazel Holt was kind enough to take some time and answer a few questions for the blog! Thanks again!

1. Other than Mrs. Malory, do you have a favorite character in the series? Or a book you especially like? And why? (For bonus points, do you ever reread your books?)

I suppose my favorite has to be Rosemary - and Tris and Foss of course. I think I like "The Cruellist Month" best (most fun to write), then "The Shortest Journey"

2. You set The Cruellest Month’s murder in a library. Did you have to take extra care when writing the book? Especially as there have been many, many mysteries set in libraries over the years. 

I was very fortunate that I had the help of a Bodleian Librarian who gave me splendid tours of the place, especially the subterranean book store which few people penetrate. Of course, the Bodleian isn't really like any other library in detective fiction is it?

3. Has Agatha Christie and her cannon of book influenced your writing at all? And how? 

Not really.

4. Do you have a favorite Christie title or titles you like to read? And/Or a favorite character? And why? 

"The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" (chosen by the members of the UK Crime Writers Association as the greatest detective novel of all time).

5. Is there any Christie book you wish you had thought of first? (Assuming you have read her…) 

I wish I'd had the wit to think of ANY of her wonderful plots

6. Agatha Christie was known as the queen of poisons. Do you find that you favor any particular type of method of murder in your writing? 

I like poisons but my favorite method was carbon monoxide poisoning ("The Silent Killer") which almost happened to me.

7. Many authors (including Christie) over the years have used previous training/employment as inspiration and for believable details in their writing. Have any of your previous jobs influenced or served as direct inspiration for you? 

None of my jobs as such, only being a wife and mother.

8. Christie’s characters were often based on brief impressions of people she saw, but she could not create a character on anyone she actually had a conversation with. Are you as a writer able to base characters on real people or are they wholly fictional or a blend of the two? 

You take different characteristics from different people and blend them together.

9. What do you find it easier to work on short stories, novellas or full length novels? 

Only novels

10. What are you currently working on? 

I'm trying to finish the book I started before I became ill. IF it's finished and published it will be called "Death is a Word"

11. Any last words? 

Thank you for asking me.

-Hazel Holt

Amber Here: If you ever need a fantastic read I would really suggest this series. I thoroughly enjoy reading it. Don’t be fooled by the cat on the cover, the animals do not solve the mystery. Mrs. Malory cares for them but that is all!

My 52 Weeks With Christie: Donald Bain Interview

Donald Bain the author of the great Murder She Wrote series was kind enough to answer a few questions for my blog series! Thank you so much for taking the time! -Amber

1. How does it feel to be celebrating the Silver Anniversary for the Murder She Wrote series?

If someone had told me back in 1989 that I would be still writing “Murder, She Wrote” books 2014, I would have questioned their sanity. But that’s how it has ended up, 25 years and 43 novels later, all still in print.  I couldn’t be more pleased. It was 10 years ago that I stopped by the Seattle Mystery Bookshop to sign copies of Destination: Murder, the 21^st book in the series,  and was introduced to a remarkable gentleman named Bill Farley. His love of the mystery genre was palpable and I fell in love with the shop. I still have a direct link to it on my website for those who wish to buy from a prized independent book shop.      

While the TV show, still in syndication and celebrating its 30^th year, has introduced millions of people to “Murder, She Wrote,” I take great pride in the books having a distinct life of their own, generating an entire new world of fans. I especially enjoy receiving e-mails from young people who have gotten into the reading habit through the novels, and from parents who use the books to kick-start their kids into reading fiction. Because the books don’t contain any gory violence, four-letter words, or sex scenes, they’re a perfect jumping off point for young readers and their parents.

2. You have written many, many books, (115 at last count) do you have a favorite out of the lot? And Why?

I’ve always been especially fond of a dramatization I wrote based on a true story set in Southern Illinois during the Prohibition era. Its working title was War in Illinois. I tried to get the publisher, Prentice-Hall, to change it but they refused. The result was considered a “regional book” which limited its sales potential. I eventually got the rights back and arranged for my alma mater, Purdue University, to publish a new edition with the title Charlie and the Shawneetown Dame. It’s a wonderful tale that involves the first bombing of a target from an aircraft in the United States. Charlie Birger was a Jewish guy from New York who settled in Southern Illinois with aspirations to become the Al Capone of the area. A rival gang, the Shelton Brothers, hired an open-cockpit bi-wing plane, made bombs out of sticks of dynamite taped together, and dropped them on Charlie’s beloved Shady Rest headquarters. The book is a combination of The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight and Goodfellas, and I smile whenever I think of spending many weeks in Southern Illinois researching the book. By the way, the Shawneetown Dame was a beautiful society babe from Shawneetown who had affairs with both Charlie and his rival, Bernie Shelton. Her perfidy led to Charlie’s demise, a public hanging. His final words were, “Bury me in a Catholic cemetery. The Devil will never look for a Jew there.”

I’m also extremely proud of the 20-plus Washington-based mysteries/thrillers in the Margaret Truman Capital Crimes series. My name is now on them. The most recent, Undiplomatic Murder, will be released this summer by TOR/Forge.

And in May my own novel (as opposed to writing with, or for others), will be published by Severn House. It’s called Lights Out! and involves a mild-mannered, ordinary guy who goes through a monumental male mid-life crisis once he meets and falls in love with a South American bombshell, Gina Ellanado. He concocts a bizarre money-making scheme to have enough money to leave his loveless marriage and spend the rest of his days in carnal bliss with Gina. Naturally, things unravel for him. I started the novel in 2003 and, unashamedly, love it.

3. Do you try and follow the Rules Of Fair play when writing your mysteries?

There isn’t a quicker way to lose murder mystery readers than to not play fair with them. My wife, Renée Paley-Bain, with whom I’ve been collaborating on the series for a number of years, and I constantly go back over what’s been written to ensure that nothing we’ve written will unfairly mislead the reader. Still, we miss something now and then, and our loyal readers are quick to point it out to us. We have a basic rule: If something in the manuscript strikes one of us as being unfair or unlikely, there must be something wrong; it should be rethought and probably rewritten.

The novels in “Margaret Truman’s Capital Crimes” series are not so much murder mysteries as Washington-based thrillers that take the reader inside a government agency, or an institution like Ford’s Theatre or The National Gallery. Because the stories are more straightforward than the “Murder, She Wrote” novels, there’s less chance of leading the reader astray. My operative philosophy is that anything you make up about Washington, no matter how outlandish, is plausible.

4. Is Jessica Fletcher considered some what of a black cat (by those who don‘t know her well) since she ends up stumbling & solving so many murders? It is said Cabot Cove has a 50% higher murder rate than Honduras, which is the world’s murder capitol.

We sometimes wonder how the Cabot Cove Chamber of Commerce feels about Jessica tripping over so many bodies in what is an otherwise tranquil, peaceful Maine seaside town. Of course we also have Jessica traveling to other places where the homocides with which she becomes involved aren’t so homegrown. I suppose it’s all in the way you view it, glass half-full or half-empty. On the one hand Ms. Fletcher seems to attract the murderous kind no matter where she goes. On the other hand having her ready, willing and able to bring the killers to justice might provide a modicum of comfort to her neighbors.   

5. How do you feel about Mrs. Fletcher being likened to Miss Marple so often?

I can’t think of a more flattering comparison than this. Jessica and Miss Marple are both genteel, refined ladies who solve murders without having to resort to physical mayhem, the sort of women whom we admire and look up to. With so much abject violence in the world, both real and imagined on TV, in movies, and in books, having sleuths who use their deductive powers rather than brute strength to bring about justice is refreshing.   

6. Christie was fond of bumping people off with poisons, do you have a favorite method of murder you like to use in your books? And why?

In one of our MSW books a snakebite, arranged of course, caused the death of the victim. The choice of how to kill someone depends upon a variety of considerations, including whether the murderer is a man or a woman. Female characters tend to lean towards less gruesome means of murder, although not always. Too, whether the murder is carefully planned in advance, or results from a moment of extreme anger or a jealous rage, plays a role in choosing the weapon that takes someone’s life. When considering poison, does the killer have reasonable access to the potion, and knowledge of how to use it? Is it the killer’s intention to make the death appear to be accidental, or a suicide? Or, to turn the question on its head, was what appeared to be a murder actually accidental, leading to an innocent man or woman being falsely accused?

7. Have any of your mysteries (MSW or one of the others) been inspired or influenced by one of Christie’s works?

Perhaps not in a direct, specific sense, but the Christie aura always hangs over every murder mystery writer. There were two Christie books, Murder on the Orient Express and 4:50 From Paddington that I especially enjoyed and might have played with my subconscious while writing Destination: Murder in the MSW series, in which much of the action takes place on a train in British Columbia. I happen to enjoy trains; they’re such an appealing setting for murder to occur among a group of people.

8. Is there any book in the Christie cannon you wish you had thought of first? And Why?

All of them.

9. Any Final Words?

In this age of technology run amok, digital publishing and electronic reading gadgets, independent book stores like the Seattle Mystery Bookshop, with its love for the genre, and staffed by knowledgeable book lovers, are to be treasured and preserved.

Thanks for having me on your blog. It’s been nothing but fun.    

Donald Bain

My 52 Weeks With Christie: John Curran Interview

       

John Curran, a Christie expert & author, was nice enough to answer a few questions for the blog! Thank you so much!

1. Your first book, Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks, has won some of the biggest mystery awards out there, an Anthony, Agatha and Macavity awards, how has is felt to have your work so widely applauded?

Very surprised! Although I knew Christie was popular I had no idea just how truly worldwide her appeal was. Since Secret Notebooks appeared I have visited – apart from numerous venues in the UK and Ireland (where I live) – the US, Japan, Turkey, Iceland, Finland, Germany and the Canary Islands; and have been guest speaker on an Agatha Christie Cruise. People frequently approach me after an event to say that, since getting a glimpse at the creative process behind her work, their interest in Christie has been re-ignited. And that always please me – that my work has contributed to a better understanding of just how good a detective novelist Christie was.   

2. Are you working on a third installment of Agatha Christie’s notebooks? Or on something completely different?

I will be writing another book but not about the Notebooks. It will focus on a different aspect of Christie but which one has yet to be finalised.

3. As an expert in Christie’s writing, while studying her notebooks, did you find out anything in her writing which surprised you? What was the oddest item you found in the notebooks?

The biggest surprise was the lack of ‘order and method’, as Hercule Poirot would say! All of her fans know that the plotting in a Christie is impeccable and that everything clicks neatly into place in the last chapter. Not so with the Notebooks. Notes for a novel could be – and were – scattered over as many as a dozen Notebooks; plotting notes are interrupted by a list of Christmas presents or a page of bridge scores. Piecing it all together was like a giant jigsaw. The most unexpected pages were those devoted to the novel she was planning to follow Postern of Fate, the last novel she wrote. It was to have been a dark psychological crime novel with a final Christie twist. But, alas, it was not to be.  (See final Unused Ideas of Murder in the Making!)

4. It is always the hope of the fans of an author who has passed away, that a new story will be found in the back of a desk drawer of in a filing cabinet. As a man who has actually found several hidden gems, do you think there are any more new stories out there to find? Or is the latest, Hercule Poirot and The Greenshore Folly, most likely the last one?

I hope to bring her radio plays to the public in the next few years. She wrote four plays specifically for radio. Two – Yellow Iris and Three Blind Mice – became, respectively, the novel Sparkling Cyanide and the everlasting play, The Mousetrap. The remaining two – Personal Call and Butter in a Lordly Dish – are wonderfully clever scripts complete with Christie twists. And almost completely unknown.  

5. Is there anything we ought to know about Christie’s writing that is often overlooked?

As a writer she is very under-estimated. Commentators and critics dismiss her style while admitting – almost reluctantly – her plotting genius. But I often wonder how much of her output have they actually read. I don’t consider her a Jane Austen or a George Eliot but novels such as Five Little Pigs, The Hollow or Ordeal by Innocence are as much character-driven as plot-driven. And even a cursory comparison with most of her crime-writing contemporaries from the 1930s and 1940s shows how much better she was at every aspect of her craft: plot, character, dialogue, pace and sheer readability. After all, if what she did was so simple why has no-one ever duplicated her success? Ever...

6. Any Last Words?

Some facts to ponder:

·         It is possible to read a different Christie title every month for seven years.

·         She is the only crime-writer to create two equally successful detective characters.

·         She is the only crime writer to be as successful on the stage as the page.

·         She is the only female dramatist in history to have had three plays running simultaneously in London’s West End.

·         She is the most widely translated and best-selling author of all time.

·         ...and she never went to school!