All About Agatha (christie)

Though the biggest mystery may be how to spell and pronounce "Caribbean," there is plenty of intrigue to go around in this Miss-Marple-on-holiday story, which at least one Christie scholar deems to be the last proper whodunit that she wrote.

What a great time we had gabbing with this debut author about her recently published (and much buzzed-about) novel... almost as great a time as we had reading it!

This short story is a precursor to The Mystery of the Blue Train, but don't let that put you off! We found much to enjoy--both in the source material and the Suchet adaptation.

Well... they can't all be winners, can they? This (barely-there) Poirot novel is not one of our favorites, we're sorry to say. But as usual, we relish the opportunity to explore and explain why. Because even a lesser Christie is a source of wonder and joy.

We've got Poirot. We've got Hastings. We've got a prince. A lady of mysterious origins. A frozen-in-time bridge tableau! If you need more, you're probably not listening to the right podcast....

We were fortunate enough to sit down with Sarah Pearse, the author of one of this season's hottest (or is that iciest?) thrillers, The Sanatorium. There are lots of connections to be made between her book and Christie, and naturally, we made them all. Enjoy! This episode is brought to you by Best Fiends.

Someone might need to stage an intervention, because the longer we talk about Christie, the more we apparently have to say! We hope you enjoy our super-sized discussion of this intriguing late Christie novel (perhaps the *first* late Christie novel?), during which we wax poetic about all sorts of topics--from the rigors of film acting to the ravages of time. Oh, and Dark Marple, of course.

We were thrilled to speak with Martin Edwards, one of the foremost scholars of detective fiction of the Golden Age. He is also a mystery novelist in his own right, and the current President of the Detection Club. What is the Detection Club, you ask? Take a listen and find out! This episode is sponsored by Best Fiends.

It isn't often that we focus as much on an adaptation of a Christie story as the story itself, but if ever there were an episode to do so, it's this one. Join us as we gush over the very first episode of the David Suchet series, including a lengthy discussion as to why this short story was such an excellent choice for the pilot episode of this excellent program.

We had such a fantastic time discussing this late-career Christie gem, as creepy and unsettling as the story may be.... Beware the Pale Horse! This episode is sponsored by YARN and Best Fiends.

A Miss Marple short story is always cause for celebration, and this one is no exception. Come with us--to St. Mary Mead, of course--where Miss Marple finds herself at the center of a local murder, the solving of which will uncover a long-held secret from the past. In other words: all is exactly as it should be in the Christieverse.... This episode is sponsored by YARN and Best Fiends.

While there is so much we hope will be different about 2021 as compared to 2020, our passion and appetite for Christie do not feature on that long, long list. Happy New Year, dear listeners: we hope you enjoy our leisurely ramble from Meadowbrook to Ramat and back again for this late-career “turducken” of a Christie that we quite enjoyed. Also, how did Kemper manage to shoehorn not one but two clips from Jurassic Park into this episode?! Listen, and be amazed….

Consider this our "Christie for Christmas," an original episode all about what it's like to read Christie in the here and now--in particular, those aspects of the texts that may strike us as seeming "stuck in their time" or otherwise difficult/awkward to negotiate. This is something we've talked about a lot over the years, and we're so grateful to be able to add more voices to the conversation with this episode--YOUR voices, in fact. Thank you again to the listeners who contributed their thoughts; it's our hope that you all get something out of the endeavor. Happy holidays!

This episode completes our review of The Labours of Hercules collection. We also took the opportunity to comment on the somewhat disappointing--but not entirely disastrous--Suchet adaptation.

It's been a while since we've had Mark on our show, but we couldn't pass up the opportunity to fawn over his new book, Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World. This also gave us as good an excuse as any to chatter on about Poirot for an hour or so.... If you feel so inclined (and we wager you will), go to https://bookshop.org to (pre-)order a copy for yourself, if you don't have one already.

We are both HUGE Tana French fans, so we suspect many of you are too. This interview was a joy to record; we hope you enjoy it half as much as we did. And if you haven't yet bought Tana's latest book, The Searcher, or any of the titles mentioned in our conversation, we encourage you to check out https://bookshop.org/, which is a safe and streamlined way to buy books online from independent bookstores in both the U.S. and UK. Happy reading!

We had A LOT to say about this undeniably striking offering in the latter half of the Christie catalogue--not all of it good, but all of it quite heartfelt. Oh, and we also had A LOT to say about the adaptations, too.

Visit our Patreon site at: http://www.patreon.com/allaboutagatha. We hope you enjoy the episode! (If you've been jonesing after LOTS of Angela Lansbury clips, you should be very pleased.)

We're thrilled to have gotten to speak with author/screenwriter/producer Anthony Horowitz, who has brought us so much joy--and not only for the Poirot episodes he adapted in the course of the David Suchet series. Anthony is in the midst of two separate contemporary mystery series, both of which we discussed, with a particular (and spoiler-free!) focus on his most recent novel, Moonflower Murders.

In a perfect world, we could apply Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” drugs campaign referenced in our first story to the questionable art restoration techniques discussed in the second. Alas--and this is probably not a newsflash--but the world we live in is not perfect. (Don’t worry, this will make a lot more sense after you’ve listened to the episode. Enjoy!)