I have been an Agatha Christie fan for well over 60 years, having read one of her gripping whodunnits, A Murder Is Announced, for the first time at the age of 14. The ingenious plot fascinated me and I became one of her millions of devoted readers. To me, her books are now as addictive as tea.
Yet, even after having read most of her books, I’ve seldom been able to correctly pinpoint the culprit before the denouement. It’s her uncanny ability to keep readers guessing—usually wrongly—the identity of the killer that makes her thrillers so popular. She bamboozles them with clever twists and turns in the plot, so much so that more often than not the unlikeliest person is the most likely one to have committed the crime.
Interestingly, in one of her earlier books, The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd, Christie played the ultimate joke on her readers by making the narrator of the story the murderer—something unheard of in those conventional times. She fully exploited her knowledge of poisons acquired during a stint as a volunteer in a hospital dispensary during World War I.
Her immortal creations, Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple, are perhaps second only to Sherlock Holmes in terms of popularity. Personality-wise, the two are quite unlike each other. Poirot, an outright dandy, is showy, extroverted and keenly observant, employing his ‘grey cells’ to telling effect. Miss Marple on the other hand is a demure and retiring spinster given to gossiping and knitting. Yet her mind is as sharp as Poirot’s when it comes to understanding human nature and unmasking the criminal.
Sometimes, halfway through a Christie whodunnit I’m awfully tempted to take a peek at the denouement in the last chapter. But realising this would only ruin my enjoyment of the story, I somehow restrain myself. My bookshelf, of course, prominently sports several Christie titles and my brother—another avid Christie reader—has an even bigger collection of her books that complements mine, giving me access to almost all the Christie stories that I like to read and reread. Indeed, I seldom tire of the undisputed queen of crime fiction.
Undoubtedly, Christie’s meticulously crafted plots and her uncommon ability to keep readers guessing (and on tenterhooks) till the very end have been the cornerstone of her success story as a crime fiction writer extraordinaire. She’s been so spectacularly successful that she’s today perhaps the most emulated writer in this genre.
George n Netto
Email: gnettomunnar@rediffmail.com