Agatha Christie in general

Summer (believe it or not) is upon us. Yay! And what better way to spend those long, luke-warm days in the wishy-washy sun than to read a book on that uncomfortable, flimsy plastic sun lounge with a cocktail resting on a table near-by? And so you pop along to WH Smith (or any other reputable book seller) and look around. Now if you walk into any bookshop you are bombarded with trendy 'books for modern living', with a nice trendy cover and a nice trendy storyline. But sometimes, after reading about the adventures of numerous teenage boys in diary form and their day to day struggle through those dark days we know as puberty until you can't look at a ...

Summer (believe it or not) is upon us. Yay! And what better way to spend those long, luke-warm days in the wishy-washy sun than to read a book on that uncomfortable, flimsy plastic sun lounge with a cocktail resting on a table near-by? And so you pop along to WH Smith (or any other reputable book seller) and look around. Now if you walk into any bookshop you are bombarded with trendy 'books for modern living', with a nice trendy cover and a nice trendy storyline. But sometimes, after reading about the adventures of numerous teenage boys in diary form and their day to day struggle through those dark days we know as puberty until you can't look at a ...

Agatha Christie well deserves (in my humble opinion) the title of the "Queen of Crime". She is certainly one of the most prolific crime authors of our time - but people nowadays tend to pooh-pooh her achievements. It is somewhat fashionable to do so now, in this new era of the more verbose, tough, gritty and don't-hit-and-miss-the-wall type of crime fiction. Not that these new in-depth soap opera-like characterisations aren't without interest - but I wouldn't favour them over Mrs Christie. True, her books were often quite short in comparison with many of the crime novels of today, nothing much but the most superficial attention (outwith ...