Short Story Genre Survey, Part 5

 

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I've added a category. Today, we'll be looking at a mystery that is a traditional whodunit. I realized that we also need a category for hard-boiled crime stories. Some of them do have a whodunit element, but its not a necessary component and I think you can consider traditional mysteries and noirish crime tales to be separate genres.

Anyway, as I said, we'll be looking at a traditional whodunit--this one by the Queen of Whodunits, Agatha Christie. Gee whiz, the woman was brilliant. Her mysteries are fair-play. The clues are always there for us to see. But they are so casually dropped into the story that we easily miss them.

"A Christmas Tragedy" (originally titled "The Hat and the Alibi") was published in the January 1930 issue of The Story-Teller. It's part of a series of stories in which the clever Miss Marple is at a gathering with friends. In each story, a friend tells of an experience that includes a mystery. Miss Marple, of course, inevitably figures out the mystery part of it.

This time, it's Miss Marple's turn to tell a tale. And it's a good one. She tells about a time that she realized a husband was planning to murder his wife and make it look like an accident. But she has no proof and knows the wife won't believe her.

Then the wife was murdered. But it's not an accident. It's obviously a murder. She was bashed over the head in her hotel room.

But the husband has a solid alibi. He couldn't have done it. It was, the police conclude, a burglar she caught in the room.

This doesn't sit well with Miss Marple. But she concedes that the husband does indeed have an alibi for the time his wife was murdered.

Or so it seems...

It's a story I can't summarzie any further without spoilers. The clues are there and the solution is clever and satsifying. This is the sort of puzzle that Christie did better than anyone else. I'm afraid I don't have a link to take you directly to the story this time, but its worth searching out. It's available in the anthologies The Thirteen Problems and The Complete Short Stories of Agatha Christie.

Murder of Roger Ackroyd

 

Angela and I recently discovered a podcast that discusses each of Dame Agatha's novels individually. We've started reading the novels themselves, then listening to the applicable episode together.

Also, we recently mentioned The Murder of Roger Ackroyd in the Bible study I teach, talking about how shocking people found the ending without giving the ending away. That got four others in the group to read the book themselves.

The 1926 novel (the third featuring Hercule Poirot--though Poirot had also appeared in a number of short stories) really is one of the best classic mysteries ever written. Both Angela and I had read it before, but we both enjoyed re-reading it.

We usually re-read classic mysteries because the protagonists (in this case, Hercule Poirot) are such great characters that we love re-visiting them. The first read is always the best, when we don't know whodunit. But we can still go back again and again. We like being metaphorically at the side of Poirot, Miss Marple, Holmes, Peter Whimsey and the other great detectives. They are the coolest people we know.

 

That's true in the case of "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd." We love hanging out with Poirot, so can still enjoy the book even though we know how it ends.

 

But this is a novel where finding out who did it the first time you read it was downright shocking. Christie breaks the rules of traditional fair-play mysteries in this book, but STILL gives us a fair-play mystery. All the clues are there and Poirot's summation is solid.

 

So, when re-reading it as I just did, it is particularly fun to spot the subtle indications that point to the killer seeded throughout the book. This might be one of the most brilliantly constructed mystery plots ever written and returning to it deepened my appreciation for it.

The Secret Adversary

 

Angela and I recently discovered a podcast that had discussed Agatha Christie's books in publication order. Being who we are, we read Dame Agatha's first novel--1920's The Mysterious Affair at Styles--before listening together to the episode discussing it.  Now, we've moved on to her second book, reading it in preparation for listening to THAT episode. I have a wife who enjoys doing stuff like this with me. In other words, I have a perfect wife.

Christie's early novels are not as polished as her later efforts, but The Secret Adversary (1922) is still a blast to read. It introduces Tommy and Tuppence, two childhood friends who meet again right after the Great War ends and, both being broke, decide to start a company called "The Young Adventurers, Ltd." Then, without even meaning to, they stumble into their first adventure. 

It involves a survivor from the sinking of the Luisitania who has been missing for years; secret papers that were important during the war and are suddenly important again; a criminal gang of Socialists who plan to overthrow the British government; an American millionaire who might or might not be an ally; and a mysterious master criminal known only as Mr. Brown.

Tommy and Tuppence are not as revered a Poirot or Miss Marple, but I like 'em. They are both clever and their bantering dialogue carries the story along in a fast and entertaining manner.

The Secret Adversary is more of a thriller than a mystery, with both Tommy and Tuppence getting captured at different times along the way and the palpable aura of danger generated by the mostly off-screen Mr. Brown adding quite a bit of tension. There are mystery elements, though. involving the identity of Mr. Brown and the location of the secret papers.

Brown's identity is nicely handled. There's a rather obvious clue partway through the tale that points to one of two men. But which one is a mystery unless you pick up on several more subtle clues dropped in later. This gives Christie an opportunity to pull off what would become her usual technique of dropping in an unlooked-for plot twist at the novel's climax. 

There's also a clue that will tell a super-attentive reader where the papers are, but it's included in such a matter-of-fact manner that most of us poor shlubs reading the book will miss it. Tommy eventually gets it, though. He is clever.

We never find out what the contents of the papers are, by the way. It is a perfect example of what Alfred Hitchcock would later dub a Macguffin--an object that triggers the plot. All we need to know that it's something everyone wants and that's enough to carry the story. A Hitchcockian example would be the micofilm in 1959's North by Northwest. We never even get a hint as to what's on that darn film. All we need to know is that the bad guys have it and the good guys need it back.

One thing that's not a mystery in The Secret Adversary: If you don't know that Tommy and Tuppence are going to be in love and engaged by the end of the novel, then you aren't really trying. It's just as well. This allows them to appear in three more novels and an anthology of short stories.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Suspense: "Philomel Cottage" 10/7/43

An excellent adaptation of an Agatha Christie story about a woman who improvises an innovative method of foiling a murder plot.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Suspense: “Where There’s a Will” 2/24/49

James Mason stars in this adaptation of an Agatha Christie story. He’s a guy who owes a small fortune to ill-tempered gamblers. Fortunately, he’s the main beneficiary in his aunt’s will—and his aunt has a weak heart.

Being an Agatha story, the method that Mason uses to scare his aunt to death is clever and apparently foolproof. But—being an Agatha story—the one small detail that causes his plan to unravel is cleverly hidden inside the plot. Mason had a great voice for radio and it’s a pleasure to hear him in such a well-constructed story.


Click HERE to listen or download.

How did the body GET in the library anyways.

The Body in the Library (1941),  by Agatha Christie.

If I were asked to choose between Agatha Christies two most famous creations—to pick whether I enjoy reading about Hercule Poirot more than Miss Jane Marple, or visa versa—then I believe I’d be stumped.

Both are classic characters—fictional people who (like Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe) we can easily come to believe as real. We’ve already run across Poirot in this post, but it’s Miss Marple who fingers the killer in The Body in the Library.

The body belongs to a young dancer named Ruby Keene, who’s been strangled to death. The library is in Gossington Hall, the upper-class home of Colonel and Mrs. Bantry. How the body ended up in their library is one of many mysterious aspects of the case. Neither the Bantrys nor their servants knew the poor girl.

So Mrs. Bantry calls Miss Marple, the elderly woman with a predilection for solving crimes.

It’s always fun to follow along with Miss Marple when she’s on a case. She puts things together not just through deductive reasoning, but also through her sharp and cynical understanding of human nature. She parallels what she sees in people with analogous situations she has encountered in her small hometown. For instance, when she sees the body in the library, she comments that it’s just like when young Tommy Bond put the frog in the clock. And that actually makes sense, when she eventually explains herself.

Anyway, the investigation of the crime leads to the hotel where the murdered girl worked. Soon, another body turns up, though the connection to the first murder isn’t obvious. (Well, not obvious to us. Miss Marple sees it pretty much right away.)  There’s a couple of likely suspects, but both have good alibis. And how the heck DID the body end up in the library anyways?

As is typical of Agatha Christie’s wonderful novels, the clues are all there for us to see along with Miss Marple. The solution is intricate, but makes perfect sense when it’s all explained to us in the end. And the dénouement is excellent—the killer’s identity isn’t revealed even after he or she is caught. It’s only when Miss Marple finally takes us through her reasoning that we all come to understand exactly what’s been going on.


Next time, we'll finish off our Great Detective Survey with a look at The Nine Tailors, by Dorothy Sayers.

Curse you, Agatha Christie!!!!!!

The ABC Murders, by Agatha Christie


No mystery writer was better at twist endings and planting incredibly subtle clues that reveal one of the least likeliest suspects (or, often, someone who wasn’t a suspect at all) turn out to be the killer. It actually kind of gets on my nerves. I can occasionally figure out a Perry Mason solution. I remember being insufferable proud of myself as a 12-year-old when I figured out the solution to “The Red Headed League” right along with Sherlock Holmes.


But I don’t think I’ve ever beaten Hercule Poirot or Miss Marble to the punch. When the solution to the mystery is revealed, it will turn out that the clues were all there right in front of us. But only I’ve never manage to quite figure it all out before the wonderful creations of Agatha Christie do.


The ABC Murders seems to at first be atypical. Poirot receives letters from a madman who signs his name ABC, taunting Poirot to catch him and revealing in each letter the town in which the next murder would take place. The madman seems to have an alphabet obsession—his kills a Mrs. Asher in the town of Andover. Then a Miss Barnard in the town of Bexhill. And so on.


It does not seem to be a matter in which Poirot’s usual deductive genius can really help, since there is no logical motive or method behind it all. But Poirot’s skills do play a part when he gathers the friends and relatives together, questioning them until a certain pattern to the events is made clear.


Then the killer is finally caught. It all seems very straightforward, at least until Poirot suddenly comes forward with the announcement that all is not as it seems…


At which point he gives us a summary of several clues that were right there for us to see as well. But we don’t—at least not until Poirot points them out to us. Agatha Christie, darn her, is far too good at her job to all that. That’s why her often brilliant mysteries are still in print today—over eight decades after she first began to write them. That’s why The ABC Murders is so much fun to read. That’s why she continues to get on my nerves.


Next month, we'll look at "The Chinese Parrot" and visit with the world's most likable detective--Charlie Chan.

Whodunit?

How do you pick an example of the best traditional whodunit? Even if you stay with just the cream of the crop--Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie & Ellery Queeen--the thought of picking out just one example can make your brain explode. There's just too much good stuff to pick from.

But, by golly, I write for a blog which has a bare handful of regular readers at best, so there's no sense in letting my brain explode. I will force myself to choose--more or less at random--Agatha Christie's Belgium detective Hercule Poirot.

All great whodunits have to have appealing main characters. Poirot is vain and egotistical, but he's undeniably brilliant and oddly likable. Retired from the Belgium police force, Poirot travels the world. But wherever he goes, someone is inevitably murdered--the local police are baffled--and Poirot steps in to take a hand.

The novels always have a "Watson" character, someone who assist Poirot and narrates the story. In the 1926 novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the "Watson" is Dr. Sheppard, the local doctor in the small English town where Roger Ackroyd came to an untimely end. It's a traditional and effective conceit, letting the reader get all the same information the detective gets, but obligating us to figure it all out for ourselves, since we are not privy to the detective's private thoughts and theories.

At their best, Christie's best novels feature the best mystery plots ever. She was a master of having the least likely suspect turn out to be the guilty party. In fact, if you pick out the least likely suspect and just assume he or she is guilty--well, you'll still be wrong, because it will turn out to be someone even less likely.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a prime example of this. The revelation of who the killer is will--in all likelihood--make your brain explode. If you've never read it, do so soon. But do not peak at the ending. Allow yourself to properly experience one of the best plot twists that have ever graced the printed page.