Thu 27 Jul 2017
AGATHA CHRISTIE – Appointment with Death. Dodd Mead, US, hardcover, 1938. US paperback reprints include many editions from both Dell and Berkley over the years, as well as other publishers. First published in the UK: Collins, hardcover, 1938. Published play: French, softcover, 1956. Film: Cannon, 1988 (with Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot & Lauren Bacall). TV movie: ITV, 22 September 2008 (Season 11, Episode 4, of the series Agatha Christie’s Poirot; with David Suchet as Hercule Poirot).
The book opens thusly, with a quiet gentleman standing unseen in an open window above the following snippet of conversation:
“You do see, don’t you, that she’s got to be killed?”
It is night, the setting is Jerusalem, and among a group of tourists is the man who accidentally overhears this cry for help — for that is what it is — none other than Hercule Poirot. Among the other travelers are the domineering aged mother of three grown stepchildren, the wife of one, and a young daughter of her own. She is hated by all of them, but they are totally dependent on her psychologically as well as financially, and they cannot break away from her.
A recipe for disaster, you think, and you would be right. The most common means of murder in Agatha Christie’s novels is poison, I suspect, and so it is here. A close reading of the timetable that Poirot puts together (pages 146-147), plus a list of ten Significant Points (page 180), along with a keen ear for the clues he gathers from everyone involved, and you may solve the mystery as quickly as he. Or not, as the case may be (mine).
One by one each of the possible suspects are interviewed, and one by by one, each of the suspects is eliminated — or are they? From the facts, it is impossible for anyone to have killed her, but the primary fact is that the idious old woman is dead.
What makes this particular case to be solved by M. Poirot so clever is that it turns out to be so simple — after he explains. Did I name the killer? No, but I did come close! I think this short novel (only 212 pages in the Berkeley paperback) qualifies as the best detective puzzle I’ve read all year. And it bears repeating. There’s nothing cozy about an Agatha Christie murder mystery. She was a keen sharp-edged observer of the human race, and she had the knack of making her characters as real as the people you see around you every day.
Not only that, but she sure knew her poisons, too!
July 27th, 2017 at 9:49 pm
Wherever Christie got the cozy reputation I can’t imagine. Poirot and Miss Marple can both be ruthless, and Christie’s eye is as savage as Hammett in her own way.
July 27th, 2017 at 10:41 pm
Not that it’s otherwise relevant, but this comment that you’ve just left, David, is number 32,000 on this blog. Congratulations are in order!
July 28th, 2017 at 4:51 am
So what did David win? And congratulations to you Steve and Mystery*File.
1. David, the only mystery fiction term more misused than cozy is noir.
Christie gets tagged with it is because she writes traditional style whodunits with most of the violence happening off stage (more so in the adaptations to stage, film and TV than books) and she is a woman. Doyle’s Holmes never is called a cozy but both use the same traditional mystery format.
One of the strongest reason to exclude Christie from the cozies is her use of a detective Poirot. There is no set of rules for a cozy or hardboiled, but I believe one of the most common points of cozies is the average person involved in solving the case. Romance is usually another part of a cozy and Christie left the romance (usually) to the suspects and not the detective.
July 28th, 2017 at 1:13 pm
Unending gratitude, of course, but the same goes to you and everyone else who contributes or leaves comments. I can’t thank you all enough.
July 28th, 2017 at 11:50 am
I’ve both read this and seen the Ustinov film, yet I remember nothing of it. Hmm. Time for a re-reading. Getting old sucks.
July 28th, 2017 at 1:02 pm
It’s frustrating, all right, that’s for sure. Trying to keep up with the new books worth reading, re-reading favorite books from 50 years ago, and discovering how many books from your younger days you never even knew about at the time. Not to mention all of the movies that fall into categories A B and C !!
July 28th, 2017 at 1:16 pm
Back to Michael in Comment #3. It isn’t part of the definition of a cozy, but you’re right. One of the inherent characteristics of what’s usually considered a cozy is the romantic entanglements of the detective him- or herself. (Usually female?)
July 29th, 2017 at 12:43 am
For me cozy is an attitude as much as subject or style, and Christie is surprisingly tough. If you read her often you start to notice that lovers are most often the murderers, and that Poirot and Miss Marple will sit back and let a murder happen having tried to tell the murderer they know they plan a crime, but never bothering to tell the victim.