Short and Sweet

I usually am not a short story person. Oh sure, I enjoy the ones I've read in English classes, but I don't generally seek them out. Unless those stories are written by an author named Agatha Christie. Because I only own full-length novels, I haven't read any of Christie's short stories for awhile. So on my most recent library trip I grabbed a handful of her short story collections at random from the shelves. I ended up with 1 Poirot collection and 2 Marple collections and several hours of enjoyable reading.

Murder in the Mews
This is the Poirot selection of the short story collections. And really, I would label these stories more as novellas - there are only 4 in the collection and some are quite long. The 4 stories are "Dead Man's Mirror", "The Incredible Theft", "Murder in the Mews", and "Triangle At Rhodes". I'm sure I've read them all before, (and, in fact, I own "Murder in the Mews" in my omnibus collection - now I know where that story is from!) but not very recently so the twists and turns are quite enjoyable. While I really enjoy Christie's full-length novels, she can quickly create and resolve a mystery with a few deft phrases and turns of plot and this gift makes her short stories very enjoyable. She can create memorable characters and situations very quickly, and then have Poirot swiftly resolve the mystery with his little grey cells! Of course, there's not always room for murder in short stories (or more than one!) but reading about, say, the theft of valuable and top secret bomber plans still makes for interesting reading.

The Tuesday Club Murders
This is the first of the Miss Marple story collections, and is one of the best, I think. Instead of trying to twist her plot into all sort of contrivances to bring the murders to Miss Marple, Christie brings Miss Marple to the murders! It all began as a dinner party discussion on unsolved mysteries and ended up as a sort of club. The 6 people would meet once a week, at which time one of the members would tell a story of an unsolved murder that the member had come across. Of course, the murder would really be solved, but the challenge to the other club members was to come to the correct solution. At first, the club members humoured Miss Marple, but she bested them every time!

The first 6 stories in this collection comprise the first gathering of the murder-solving club. These stories are: "The Tuesday Night Club", "The Idol House of Astarte", "Ingots of Gold", "The Blood-Stained Pavement", "Motive v. Opportunity", and "The Thumb Mark of St. Peter." The remaining 7 stories represent the reunion of some members of the club with new members, and an actual murder in the quiet village of St. Mary Mead. These stories are: "The Blue Geranium", "The Companion", "The Four Suspects", "A Christmas Tragedy", "The Herb of Death", "The Affair at the Bungalow", and "Death by Drowning". Again, Christie has a knack for telling a good story in a short period of time, and these short stories are charming. The reader is given all the same facts as Miss Marple, but Miss Marple bests us (or at least me!) every time. (That said, I don't really read the stories and try to solve them - I like to be surprised with the fictional audience as Miss Marple reveals the solution and see all the clues I missed.)

Miss Marple's Final Cases
There are so many different editions and collections of Miss Marple stories that I am not sure if these are really stories that chronologically fall towards the end of Miss Marple's life, or if they were just all published towards the end of Christie's life (they were published in 1979). At any rate, the first 6 stories are excellent. The last 2 stories in this collection are not quite as good.

The first 6 stories, "Sanctuary", "Strange Jest", "Tape-Measure Murder", "The Case of the Caretaker", "The Case of the Perfect Maid", and "Miss Marple Tells a Story" are all cases which involve Miss Marple and involve actual crimes that Miss Marple helped solve, as opposed to stories which she solved (as in the above The Tuesday Club Murders). Again, not all involve murder, but there are some excellent puzzles for Miss Marple to solve. In one sense, that is why short stories can sometimes be more enjoyable than the books - there is more an emphasis on solving a puzzle in the short stories which doesn't have to include murder, as opposed to the novels which almost always involve one or more murders. Plus, you can read quite a few at one sitting and have the satisfaction of solving a number of mysteries, instead of having to read through an entire novel for the climax at the end. "Miss Marple Tells a Story" is an interesting short story in that it is narrated by Miss Marple. Usually in the Miss Marple stories and books Miss Marple is discussed in the third person; that is, the narrator is either an omniscient narrator or is a first-person narrator who is not Miss Marple. As far as I know, this is unique to the Marple cannon - I cannot recall any other stories narrated by Miss Marple, so it is interesting to get her perspective on how she solves the murder in her characteristically fluffy and muddle-headed speaking style.

The last two stories in this collection are not Miss Marple mysteries. They are not even mysteries at all, really, but more of Christie's forays into the supernatural. I generally dislike Christie's supernatural stories because I'm not interested in her views on the occult - I read her because she is an excellent puzzle creator and I enjoy the setting up of the puzzle, the clues, and the amazing finish wherein the solution is revealed. It's all very logical and one feels that one could have solved the crime if one had only applied one's self. Putting the supernatural moves it outside the realm of the logical and solvable and is not what I read Christie for. The first of these two supernatural stories (which I, not realizing that it wasn't a Marple mystery waited in vain as I read through it for Miss Marple to pop up and set everything right.) is "The Dressmaker's Doll" and is not very good and doesn't really seem to have a point - it's about a mysterious doll who haunts a dressmaking establishment. Nothing really happens and then the story just ends. Not my favourite. "In A Glass Darkly" is better - the narrator seems to experience a supernatural phenomenon which influences the course of his entire life. Nice twist at the end too. But not a mystery.

I quite enjoyed my read through some of Christie's short stories, and I will be looking to add her short story collections to my already extensive Poirot and Marple omnibus collection. I will also be looking soon to buy a new bookshelf for all the potential acquisitions!