Ms. Christie, you write good mysteries.

I was on a little road trip recently and had to pack a few books to read. And since it has been a little while since I last read them, and the omnibus editions are super handy, I figured it was time to pull out the old Agatha Christie novel collection and pack it along. I chose The Perfect Murders.

As you can see from the picture, this omnibus edition contains 3 full-length Poirot novels and 1 novella: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Murder on the Orient Express, Murder in the Mews, and Hercule Poirot's Christmas. These books are quite handy to pack on vacation. You can bring 3 or 4 books for the space of one! And they're paperback, so nice and light.


I grew up reading all the Agatha Christie Poirot and Marple mysteries in my mom's old paperback editions. I was excited when I saw HarperCollins come out with these beautiful omnibus collections with the attractive dark covers and white lettering. I quickly picked up the whole set, which encompasses all (I think) of Christie's Poirot novels (although none of the short stories - that I can find).

The novels are sorted by character and theme. The 8 novels featuring Poirot's Watson, Hastings, are collected in 2 volumes. The later mysteries with Ariadne Oliver are also collected in 2 volumes. Then there are 3 wartime novels collected in their own book, then 4 post-war novels. There are 2 volumes on criminal themes: The Perfect Murders and Four Classic Cases, and then there are 2 geographical books; the first with 3 novels set in France, the second with 3 novels set in the Middle East and Egypt. I also have the 8 Miss Marple novels collected in two volumes, and a larger book at the end (not seen in the above photo) which contains 7 novels, each corresponding to one of the 7 deadly sins. It's a little too hefty for traveling!

You may notice a slight difference between most of the editions and one of the geographical volumes, Poirot in the Orient. The latter is published by Berkley, whereas the other volumes are published by HarperCollins and are (I believe) the UK edition. The UK editions are noticeably nicer than their North American counterpart as published by Berkley. The Berkley edition is smaller and the paperback covers are not as thick and they feel cheaper. So it is not as nice as the other books, but I couldn't find the HarperCollins UK edition and wanted to complete the set. I still keep my eye out for the UK edition of the book, but wonder if they decided not to publish a UK edition of that particular title. The Miss Marple collections are also different from the Poirot collection, although I have the HarperCollins UK editions of those as well.

I generally re-read my Agatha Christies at least once every 2 years, if not yearly. And, although I've read them all before, many times I can only remember who the red herring murderer is, and so am still pleasantly surprised at the end.

The volume I read on vacation, The Perfect Murders, contains 4 of Agatha Christie's best puzzles that she set for her best detective Poirot. (I do prefer him to Marple, although both are infinitely preferable to Tommy and Tuppence, whom I just do not really care for.) Well, 3 of her best puzzles, anyway. I had not read Murder in the Mews before I bought this book, and it is a good little novella (it's shorter than the other novels but longer than a short story). But the other puzzles, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Murder on the Orient Express especially, are excellent works of detective fiction. I won't spoil them for you if you haven't read them by making any comments on the plot, other than to say they are very good! As I had recently read my Agatha Christies about a year ago, I could still remember who the murderers were this time around, but I enjoyed reading the mysteries nonetheless, and instead tried to read the books from the murderers' point of view.

I have a large pile of library and other borrowed books on and around the nightstand to read (not to mention bookclub!) so I will have to try hard not to get caught up in my "Aggies". However, once you've read one, you have to read the rest of them! (Even if you're not on vacation.) I think my next pick will be Four Classic Cases, which contains: Three Act Tragedy, Sad Cypress, Evil Under the Sun, and The Hollow. But maybe not until I've read through a few other things first!