The Thirties and Forties

In addition to the omnibus books based upon the lives of Christie's characters, there is also an omnibus collection which gathers together novels by publication date, and bring together various different Christie characters instead of the old stand-bys, Poirot and Marple. I recently read two of the omnibus editions: 1930's Omnibus and 1940's Omnibus.

1930's Omnibus
This Omnibus features 4 Christie novels published between 1931 and 1939 and includes the terrifically scary and suspenseful And Then There Were None. It should be noted that the order of titles on the cover of the book is not actually the order of novels within the book.

The Sittaford Mystery
This mystery takes place in the remote village of Sittaford on the edge of Dartmoor; however, there are no giant glowing hounds in this story! (Go read Sherlock Holmes if you don't get that reference.) Sittaford is a tiny village consisting of one great manor house (Sittaford House, obviously) and several small cottages. Due to its extreme isolation, it is almost entirely cut off if there has been a heavy snowstorm, as is happening when the novel begins.

Major Burnaby lives in one of the small cottages near Sittaford House, which is owned by Burnaby's friend Captain Trevelyan. However, being inordinately fond of money, Trevelyan has chosen to let his house and move into the nearby town of Exhampton, some six miles away from Sittaford. The house was let to two mysterious colonials: Mrs. Willet and her daughter Violet Willet. It is at the Willet's new abode that the mystery begins.

Major Burnaby, the Willets, and a few other neighbours have gathered for an afternoon tea. After tea, the talk turns to games, and the party decide to participate in the spooky thrills of table-turning. (I'm unclear on exactly what this is, but the concept is similar to a Ouija board.) After various nonsensical messages, the table gets serious and spells out that Trevelyan is dead, and has been murdered! Despite the thick snow hampering his movements, Major Burnaby insists on hiking to Exhampton where, to his great dismay, he finds Captain Trevelyan dead.

Despite Christie's extensive set-up and introduction of various village characters, the main characters in the novel are 3 parties that come in almost after the fact: Captain Trevelyan's nephew and chief suspect in his murder, James Pearson; the intrepid reporter and amateur sleuth, Charles Enderby; and James's fiance, the lovely, practical, and shrewd, Emily Trefusis. Charles and Emily make a good team as they travel between Sittaford and Exhampton working to solve the mystery. One assumes that Christie is, (as usual - she was a great fictional matchmaker), setting up Charles and Emily to get together at the end, but Emily's devotion to her fiance never wavers. That said, James is not a great character - no backbone and not, apparently, particularly attractive (one cannot really tell from the story), so the reader wonders a) what Emily saw in him to get together with him in the first place, and b) why won't she pick the more active and energetic Charles?

Besides all of that, there is a clever and intriguing mystery going on - not just the murder, but about a number of other characters in the small village of Sittaford. It is a good read - especially for a nice snow day.

Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
The two sleuths in this adventure are the curate's son, Bobby Jones, and his childhood friend, Lady Frances Derwent (Frankie). While Bobby comes across as a right young idiot, I enjoyed reading about the aristocracy from Christie's point of view and reading about the class distinctions that still informed British society in the 1930's. It's amazing how much a girl could get away with if she's an Earl's daughter!

The mystery here is sort of sprung about Bobby and Frankie. Bobby is golfing one day when he finds a man who seems to have fallen off the golf course onto the cliffs below. While Bobby's friend is going to get help, Bobby stays with the body and hears the man's final words "Why didn't they ask Evans?" and sees a photo of a beautiful woman in the man's pocket. As Bobby is waiting, he recalls that he was supposed to play the organ in his father's service that evening. Fortunately for Bobby, a stranger comes along and says he'll wait with the body. Bobby departs with relief. Some time later, Bobby sees a newspaper reproduction of the photo in the dead man's pocket, and realizes it's not the same photo as he had seen. Bobby and Frankie are then thrust into a mystery complete with murder attempts, drug-taking, and kidnapping!

This is a light-hearted and enjoyable mystery. While the subject matter is fairly dark, the light-hearted natures of the two sleuths, Bobby and Frankie, keep the novel on the lighter side. I like Frankie's shrewd and "hard-boiled" persona, but am not fond of Bobby's careless, happy-go-lucky personality. Still, a good novel with a solid mystery core.

Murder is Easy
Luke Fitzwilliam, ex-colonial policeman, has returned to England after a number of years abroad. On the train on his way to London he meets an old lady who tells him about a number of mysterious deaths that have happened in her village lately. She believes that, while all of these deaths have been attributed to natural causes, the deaths are, in fact, murders and she tells him who will be murdered next. She is going to London to inform Scotland Yard that something must be done. They part ways in London and the next day Luke reads in the paper that sadly the woman was run over on her way to Scotland Yard. Even more mysteriously, a week later Luke reads an obituary of the next person the lady said would be killed. Luke's policeman instincts are activated and he goes at once to the little village of Wychwood-under-Ashe to stay with his friend's cousin Bridget, and her fiance, the odious Lord Whitfield.

Luke pretends to be a writer researching a book on local myths and customs while he is trying to figure out who is the murderer and who will be murdered next. He also is falling in love with Bridget, who seems to be falling for him too. Bridget and Luke work together to discover the murderer in a lovely little village where things aren't as they seem.

I really enjoyed this mystery. It is very suspenseful, with suggestions of the paranormal, but not enough that it distracts from the actual mystery and the actual murderer. There was also an excellent twist at the end that I didn't see coming at all. I quite enjoyed this one.

And Then There Were None
This is the novel which establishes Christie as Queen of the suspenseful mystery. 10 people are trapped on an island as houseguests in a mysterious mansion with a seemingly absent host. In quick succession, two guests are murdered. Is there someone on the island? Or is the murder one of their own? Curiously, the murders seem to be following the pattern in a poem called "10 Little Soldiers". Who will die next?

Do not read this book at night if you want to sleep! I read it in the afternoon while I was all alone in the house and that was scary enough! (It was broad daylight!) This is an excellent book and an excellent mystery. Nothing supernatural about it - the mystery can, and is, explained at the end and the solution is perfectly plausible. But the sense and feeling of tension and suspense that runs through the book is masterfully done. I don't want to say too much about it because it truly has to be read to be appreciated. (Although, in the interests of fairness, I should point out that my husband read it recently [his first Christie ever!] and he said it wasn't scary [I beg to disagree], but that it was suspenseful. He doesn't really like Christie's writing style and thought it was okay.)

1940's Omnibus
This Omnibus features four stories published between 1941 and 1949. Only one of them really has anything to do with the war specifically, although the characters and settings do reflect the extreme changes that the war brought to Britain.

N or M?
Ah, the infamous Tommy and Tuppence. Despite my general dislike of these characters, I read the first novel anyway, and thought it was alright. I still prefer Poirot and Marple, but T&T weren't bad this time out.

Tommy and Tuppence are Christie's "spy" couple. Their first book was set in the 1920's, with Tommy and Tuppence as Bright Young Things with a taste for mystery. I prefer Christie's English society mysteries as opposed to when she mixes in international spy thriller plots, mostly because I don't think she does the spy thriller genre all that well. It's still good reading, but there are probably other authors I would turn to if I wanted spy thrillers.

At any rate, this book is set in World War Two, so Tommy and Tuppence are quite a bit older and have children of their own. They are still eager to help out the war effort and so are recruited to go undercover as Mr. Meadowes (Tommy) and Mrs. Blenkensop (Tuppence). (And, more accurately, Tommy was recruited and Tuppence recruited herself to go undercover.) There are worries about a giant "Fifth Column" of German spies who have infiltrated Britain in a vast undercover network that will assist the German army with acts of strategic sabotage when the German invasion and occupation of England occurs. Tommy and Tuppence have to find the leaders of the spy ring operating in their area so England can take down the network.

Now, I've been reading a lot about spies in this era recently, and the fear of a giant underground network of German spies was a common belief in England at the time. However, recent research has demonstrated that that fear was groundless. Germany did not have a very well organized spy network and the British secret agents were good at finding and turning German spies. This knowledge probably robbed the book of any urgency it had, as I knew that there was no "Fifth Column" of German undercover agents. But for the time, it would have been very topical. And Tommy and Tuppence figured out all of the clues and solved the mystery of the spy leaders. Not a bad little novel, but I have other Christies I like better.

Towards Zero
This novel features the semi-recurring character of Superintendent Battle, the policeman whose wooden exterior conceals a bright and active mind. Battle appears in the Poirot novels and some of his own (including Murder is Easy, above). He does not appear in any of the Marple stories.

Nevile Strange is a perfect Englishman - wealthy, sporting, and handsome. He is a golf and tennis star, has a lot of money, and a new and beautiful wife, Kay. He divorced his previous wife Audrey in order to marry Kay. Nevile feels bad at this divorce and wants Kay and Audrey to be friends. To that end, he manages to arrange it so that Nevile, Kay, and Audrey are all visiting Nevile's relation Lady Tressilian at her coastal mansion during the same week of September. Rounding out the cast of characters are Audrey's childhood friend Tom Royde (back from the Empire), Lady Tressilian's companion Mary Aldin, and Kay's young follower Ted Latimer. These houseguests become suspects when Lady Tressilian is found murdered. Superintendent Battle must put together the clues, assisted by the mysterious Angus MacWhirter, to catch a killer.

This is one of my favourite Christies that I had forgotten about and hadn't read in awhile. I'd forgotten just how much I enjoyed it. I really like the character of Battle and he always does an excellent job of solving mysteries, either with Poirot or on his own. This is a terrific mystery story with a great puzzle to solve. The characters are enjoyable and interesting. This is an excellent read and a great Christie.

Sparkling Cyanide
Still one of my favourites, but I didn't read it here because I'd read it so recently in my other omnibus collection. But still worth checking out!

Crooked House
As I read this Christie, a sense of horror slowly crept up on me. I had remembered reading a Christie where the murderer was truly unexpected and truly horrific. As I read this book, I slowly came to realize that it was this book that I was actually reading! That sense of remembered horror stayed with me through the book and added an extra level of suspense. It is also interesting to know that this was one of Agatha Christie's favourite books.

Charles Hayward meets the handsome Sophia Leonides abroad during the war. They fall in love, and upon returning to London he looks her up so they can be reunited. Sophia is living in London with her grandfather Aristide Leonides and various members of the family: her grandfather's second wife Brenda, her uncle Roger and his wife Clemency, her mother Magda and father Philip, her brother Eustace and sister Josephine, Eustace's tutor Laurence Brown, and Sophia's great-aunt Edith. This varied cast of characters quickly become suspects when Sophia's beloved grandfather is murdered. Charles must assist his policeman father in the investigation even though he's in love with Sophia.

This is an excellent Christie puzzle. The suspense I had from my previous, half-remembered reading just added to the suspense already in the book. The twist at the end is shocking and totally unexpected. An excellent, suspenseful Christie mystery.