Summer is fast approaching – the official start is Thursday, June 20 – and that’s when the living is easy, COVID surges, a mammoth tornado season, and imminent elections-from-hell notwithstanding. I hope you are settling in for a nice spot of warm weather (but not too warm) and that you have plans on the horizon for an interesting vacation. Some people like to stay at a posh hotel . . . 

. . . while others like to remain active and go surfing:

Certainly, the beach is a popular location. The more attractive among us might buy a chic bathing dress and arrange themselves alluringly on the sand on the off chance that a charming rogue will pass by sweep them away. (Do try to avoid the ones who will strangle you for your jewels.) 

When considering the beach, most of us pack some necessities and find a nice quiet spot to relax and observe.

(Be sure and bring plenty of sunscreen and perhaps an umbrella. It wouldn’t do to join the crowds of sun worshippers, who I am told on good authority resemble nothing more than “bodies – arranged on slabs – like butcher’s meat!”) 

Hopefully, your “necessities” include a few books, for there is nothing more satisfying than a good beach read . . . 

Reading has always been my pastime of choice, whatever the season. Back at the beginning of the pandemic (exactly twenty-four hours, in fact, after I had been sent home from the job to which I would never return), I reminded you that, as history has shown us, the best sort of reading in times of stress is a murder mystery. Today, I want to be more specific: as sales have shown for the past hundred years, the really trendy choice of what to read on any occasion comes from the pen of the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie. 

I checked the current New York Times Best Seller list, and for some unaccountable reason, they forgot to include which Christie novels are currently trending. Those of us who are lifelong fans will have no trouble with this; no doubt we will include a couple of favorites in our luggage. In fact, many of us resort to a code system in order to connect with fellow Christie-philes while en vacance. This simply requires that one pick the correct book to show off at the appropriate occasion. You would do well to: 

• peruse Passenger to Frankfurt while waiting in the airport for your flight; 
• proudly clutch your copy of Death on the Nile while on the deck of that luxury cruise; 
• clutch your pearls as you cling to Destination: Unknown while riding a camel across the desert;
• when resting after a brisk afternoon on the ski slopes, nothing beats a steaming cup of hot cocoa (unpoisoned) and a long sit with The Sittaford Mystery.

But what of the neophyte who, for some ungodly reason, has yet to sample the joys of an Agatha Christie novel? It’s nearly impossible for me to imagine that any of you who visit this site aren’t totally familiar with the lady, but I’ll bet you know somebody who hasn’t read their Christie, and I’m here to tell you that there is no better time than summertime to surprise that special friend, or your nephew, or the kind-looking stranger at The Bells and Motley who stood you for a pint by bestowing them with the gift that keeps on giving!

The question is . . . which title should you give? Is your own favorite Christie worthy of consideration? Will it entice the recipient toward further reading? Do you limit your choices to a book from the 1930’s, that Golden Age of Christie puzzles? What about the more character-driven 40’s or the looser 50’s and 60’s? Do you choose Poirot or Marple? Do you ignore Tommy and Tuppence? 

This is going to be hard!

I began making up a list of titles, any one of which I thought would make a great starting point to the Christie canon. But then I thought: I am only one man saddled with my own opinions. The world is full of fantastic people who know their Christie and love spreading her gospel. It is one of my greatest pleasures to be connected with these people through our shared love of the author, and I realized how much better the public would be served if I asked these experts to provide a Christie title that they believe would serve as the perfect entry into her work. 

And so I reached out, appropriately, to thirteen of them, and they did not disappoint me. In the end, I couldn’t resist adding a title of my own, and between the fourteen of us we came up with a list of . . . ten. You see, I purposely made no attempt to influence my friends in order to avoid any repetition; the strength of their opinions mattered more to me than variety. Thus, a couple of mini-trends emerged, and you can make of them what you will. Still, the final list encompasses most of Christie’s career – the 20’s and the 70’s are missing, so I guess we won’t be beginning chronologically or giving any love today to Postern of Fate. 

And away we go . . . 

*     *     *     *     *

Those of you who follow along with my crazy adventures know of that magnificent trio, The Three Compadres, who every few months take it upon ourselves to make lists of the best in any given crime category. I am lucky to call these two gentlemen my friends, and it was an easy decision, given our recent attempt to provide you with the Twenty Best Christie Novels, that I ask them to participate. 

First up is actor and author Nick Cardillo. When it comes to writing, Nick is first and foremost a creator of Sherlock Holmes pastiches. You can find a concentrated example of his work in either of his two collections: The Feats of Sherlock Holmes and The Improbable Casebook of Sherlock Holmes. For his selection of a “First Christie,” Nick has gone to a true classic: 

“My selection is Five Little Pigs. For a modern reader with an interest in crime fiction, the simplicity of the novel’s set-up and execution is a perfect example of why Christie was the best to ever do it. The limited number of suspects, each exceptionally well-drawn is easy for a reader to keep in their head (unlike, say Death on the Nile with its 18+ suspects). And the novel features some of Christie’s best character work. Titles like Three-Act Tragedy and Hercule Poirot’s Christmas might have more surprising puzzles, but modern readers want to be invested in the world and the characters of a crime novel and in Five Little Pigs, Christie does this perhaps better than any other mystery. However, this does not diminish the strength of the mystery plot at all. Christie does some of her best work cluing the problem in this book and we see Poirot utilizing turns of phrase and psychological insight to solve the case instead of a Holmesian reliance on fingerprints and discarded cigarette ash – one of Christie’s greatest innovations in the genre. Five Little Pigs feels modern in a way that only a handful of Christie novels do which helps solidify my choice.”

The center point of our trio is Sergio Angelini, whose long-running and much-missed blog Tipping My Fedora is still an invaluable resource for those seeking expertise in classic crime literature and film. (It’s hard to believe Sergio laid down his keyboard at the end of 2017!) It’s not my place to get specific, but I’m excited about some projects that Sergio has coming down the pike. 

“The ABC Murders features not just Poirot but also involves Hastings and Japp, so makes for a great intro to all three classic characters. It is also a story with a very clever conceit, one that I think will appeal to newbies as it doesn’t rely on complex timetables or figuring who was where and when with the aid of a map and so will help ease them into the genre. It offers one dazzling central concept, one that is easy to grasp – while the solution is not really deducible, the reader doesn’t feel they have been cheated because the story is so very satisfying as a clever narrative (though the bit about the wrong address, which brighter readers just might see through, may give them a thrill if they figure it out). 

“Thus it seems to me to have Christie’s best-known detective – and his Watson and Scotland Yard Inspector friend – solving one of her cleverest mysteries but with the advantage that is a book that may in many respects feel quite modern in its use of the serial killer motif; it also benefits from alternative voices in the narration to provide a faster pace and more variety. This again may suit readers not yet properly acclimatized to the style and prose of Christie in particular and GAD fiction in general.”

While it’s natural to expect that Hercule Poirot is going to get a lot of love on this list, you may be wondering about a certain brilliantly intuitive spinster living in Danemead Cottage next door to the vicarage, in a picturesque village in the South East of England. Ah, but we haven’t heard from one of her greatest champions, my friend Kemper Donovan. Many is the time Kemper has waxed enthusiastically over dear Aunt Jane on his podcast, All About Agatha, and while there isn’t an elderly lady in sight in his new mystery novel, The Busy Body, the pair of female sleuths who solve that case share plenty of that good lady’s intuition and resourcefulness. It’s nice to see Kemper spreading the Miss Marple love in his suggestion:

“I have actually had the joy of putting this hypothetical into practice with a young, neophyte reader a few years ago. I gave her The Body in the Library for a few different reasons. 

1. It is short! The book barely clears 200 pages, which makes it one of Christie’s most tightly executed novels. I always think shorter is better when introducing an author to a reader, on the off chance it’s a disaster. 
2. This is a bit of a corollary to my first reason, but the puzzle at the heart of this novel is clever, and indicative of what Christie does well, but it is also fairly simple. The solution is not as labyrinthine as in some of her other novels (ahem, Taken at the Flood), nor is it overly simplistic or easily solvable–which Christie almost never is, though every rule has its exception (ahem, They Do It with Mirrors). For this reason it feels like a great “get your feet wet” mystery. 
3. It is a Miss Marple novel! And though it’s not the first Miss Marple novel (full disclosure: I struggled when answering this question between The Murder at the Vicarage and this book), I think it’s an excellent introduction to my favorite Christie detective. We’ve got Miss Marple ensconced in St. Mary Mead with her friend Dolly Bantry, doing her Miss Marple thing (i.e., being a genius) while being overlooked and underestimated by way too many people. We even have the all-too-common issue of an over-abundance of non-Marple investigators who threaten to crowd her out. And yet she reigns supreme, as she always does.
4. The opening of this book is widely recognized as one of Christie’s best. And Christie was particularly good at openings! What better way to hook a newbie, on the beach or otherwise? (Though if we’re going for a beach read specifically, I do have to put in a word for Evil Under the Sun, which takes place on the beach at a resort, where the sun-and-sand setting plays a key role in the mystery! I like to think of this one as the Poirot equivalent of The Body in the Library: not the first Poirot in the canon, and yet representative of what Christie does so well in many of the Poirots, especially in terms of the exquisite character-based puzzle she serves up on the sizzling sand….)”

Has it really been nearly two years since Jim Noy issued his last “Spoiler Warning,” that marvelous and much-missed series of podcasts where Jim, Moira Redmond and I took a deep dive into some of our favorite Christies? On the last episode Jim recorded of us together, Moira, that stylish doyenne of Golden Age fashion who blogs at Clothes in Books, had the chance to talk about the very subject at hand. I reached out to her to see if her feelings had changed, and here’s what she told me:

“If I want someone to read Agatha Christie, Mrs. McGinty’s Dead is the ideal Starter-Christie, and you can quote me on that! My favorite Poirots tend to be the 40’s and 50’s ones, and this is slap-bang in the period (1952) and a very appealing entry, which I think anyone would enjoy. It contains proper detection, and there is the excellent setup: Mrs. McGinty died after saving a newspaper cutting about former murderers. Which of them is lurking in this very English village – who has a secret worth killing for? 

Anyone who believes, incorrectly, that Poirot deals humorlessly and over-respectfully with aristocracy in stately homes should read this one and be surprised. The details of life in the 50s are splendid too, and the hideous B&B is glorious. And it is, let me repeat, funny. It contains one of my favorite lines in all Christie, about a woman with a past: ‘She had certainly been unfortunate in her husband. His peculiar practices [were] referred to in such a guarded way as to rouse instant curiosity…’

I knew what Moira would pick, and I know what I would pick (I’ll tell you later), but what on earth would be the choice of my pal JJ, a.k.a. Jim Noy, blogger at The Invisible Event and author of that fiendishly clever historical impossible crime mystery, The Red Death Murders? I mean, what does the man who began his novel with a locked-toilet murder suggest to nascent Christie fans???

“I would pick Evil Under the Sun — it has all the classic ingredients (love triangle, glamorous holiday destination, group of strangers, Poirot thrown into the mix as happenstance rather than consulted by the police) that someone new to Christie is probably going to expect, and resolves a beautifully complex little puzzle with some canny clues (a bottle thrown out a window, the smell of a perfume).  Christie deserves to be remembered as someone who could construct a tight, light, entertainingly event-packed murder, and this plays up to her strengths in all the best ways.  You can go on from here to her other works and appreciate where she improves, and when she’s worse than this there’s always the consolation that you got to have fun with her once and so presumably she’ll be fun again at some point.”

Jim and I have had the good fortune to form a Book Club with some of our friends, many of whom are also bloggers. I had to reach out to them and see which Christie they might choose to give a friend. I knew I could count on Kate Jackson, who blogs at Cross-Examining Crime, to approach the question thoughtfully and cleverly. Kate referenced Christie frequently in her two volumes of The Pocket Detective and her epic guide, How to Survive a Classic Crime Novel. And this is when a trend emerged . . . 

“Deciding on someone’s first Christie is a tricky choice. So much could depend on the individual and their prior crime fiction reading experiences. However, Brad said we could only pick the one title, so after much pondering, I went for Evil Under the Sun. My first reason for this was that I wanted to select a book which is “typical” Christie, but more importantly “typical” Christie at her best. And Then There Were None is a brilliant mystery, and it does well at blowing misconceptions about Christie out of the water, but it’s not a story Christie repeats, so arguably it could set up inaccurate expectations concerning her other work. 

“Evil Under the Sun is a Poirot mystery and he is introduced from the first chapter. As we see him interacting with fellow holidaymakers, Christie unfurls her masterclass in subtly weaving red herrings and clues into the narrative. The number of these present in the beginning chapters is impressive and I have always enjoyed how the clues are rooted in character and dialogue. Consequently, the solution hinges upon understanding the true nature of the victim (which Christie smokescreens well) and the denouement also has some great moments in which some of our assumptions about certain characters are reversed or overturned.”

Not everyone in Book Club agreed with Kate or Jim (we rarely agree about any book). Aidan Brack, who blogs at Mysteries Ahoy, agreed that a good Poirot mystery would fit the bill, but he went in a different direction:

“As I see it there are two approaches to recommending a book as a first taste of a famous author. The first is to pick a celebrated title. These are the books that have been turned into movies or that may end up on prominent lists of the most significant titles.

“I prefer to take the other: to recommend a book that is a really good read that is typical of the author. This introduces the author’s strengths and weaknesses and gives the reader a fair sense of what to expect if they keep reading the author. It also preserves those celebrated reads for later in the reader’s explorations, enabling them to encounter them in the context of their general style and enabling us to see them as exceptional works.

My selection, Peril at End House, is not the most fiendishly plotted Christie, nor does it boast the most glamorous setting or eye-catching murder. It isn’t even a personal favorite (that would be The A. B. C. Murders). But it is a really engaging story that speaks to who Poirot is as a man and as a detective.

“Readers will encounter some striking, memorable characters – particularly Nick, the young woman whose life Poirot is determined to save. They will also find a case with a fun solution that plays quite fair with the reader and that is as representative of elements from the early Poirot stories as it is of her mid-career style.

“It is, in short, that novel that best introduces you to who Christie was as a writer and for that reason, it is my go-to title when asked for a recommendation.”

Fellow Club member John Harrison is another Christie-phile; after all, his blog is called Countdown John’s Christie Journal. He concurred with Aidan: 

“I would recommend Peril at End House as a first Christie. It features the classic Poirot-Hastings combination, a set of suspects all with something to hide, a box of poisoned chocolates, and a well-hidden motive which leads, as with the best Christie’s to the least likely suspect.”

Two for Peril and two for Evil. Would anyone break the tie? Look no further than Australian author and Christie super-fan Troy Hunter. Troy is a friend of mine from the Golden Age of Detection group on Facebook, where we have enjoyed many exciting conversations about the Queen of Crime. She certainly was an influence on Troy’s recently published YA mystery novel Gus and the Missing Boy. And, yes – Troy broke the tie and established a clear leader: 

“Evil Under the Sun is my choice. Much as I love Miss Marple and so many of the stand-alones, I feel like reading (and loving) Poirot is a gateway drug to reading more Christie. EUtS is a fun Christie in an exotic locale, with engaging characters, and a cunning solution. It’s a great intro to really good Christie, but it’s not in her Top Ten most sunning novels/solutions – those I’d love the reader to discover a little later down the track.”

So far, the list has landed pretty much where you might expect it to land, with three selections from the 30’s, two from the 40’s, and one from the 50’s. As with any prolific author, Agatha Christie’s career began to get a little – shall we say, dicier? – as she aged, and I began to wonder if her later books would receive any love. I figured it was time to ask the experts, and so I turned to Dr. Mark Aldrich and Gray Robert Brown the creators of the latest Agatha-centered podcast, The Swinging Christies, which has closely examined the books, plays and Christie-inspired films of between 1959 and 1970 in provocative and often hilarious ways. I frankly challenged them to come up with a title from this era which would make a great first Christie. To my delight, they each provided their own answer to the question. 

First up is Gray, a playwright, story author, and devoted Christie scholar. 

“It’s not just a top entry in Agatha Christie’s 1960s list of works – I believe it’s a top entry in her whole canon! The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side is a great starting-point for new readers. Whilst we spend a significant amount of our podcast, The Swinging Christies, highlighting all the contemporary and surprisingly radical or “un-Christie-like” aspects in her work, including this novel, there is also a lot within Mirror Crack’d which is also utterly quintessential – a striking, humane depiction of Miss Marple, a diverting central mystery and a village setting (with added Developments…). Christie’s openers are always glorious (bar none!) and her evocation of setting is particularly effective here, ensuring new readers will be hooked from the off. And even if you guess whodunnit – or more accurately what’s-going-on – it remains an engaging read for its characters and themes. Above all else, it shows new readers the full sweep of what Christie really stands for – traditional and parochial, but also ruthlessly sharp and bold!”

Dr. Mark Aldridge teaches film for a living, and his book Agatha Christie on Screen is the definitive guide to the history of adapting the author to film and television. His massive tome on a diminutive Belgian, Agatha Christie’s Poirot, the Greatest Detective in the World, is about to get a much-anticipated shelf companion with the publication this year of Agatha Christie’s Marple: Expert on Wickedness: 

“Funnily enough I had considered recommending The Mirror Crack’d too! So I second Gray’s choice – but I’ll add one of my own, too. I’ve often recommended Peril at End House and Mrs McGinty’s Dead to first time readers, as they are solid mysteries, and one has a satisfying twist while the other is sprinkled with humor and isn’t ‘showy’ but solid and satisfying – a great foundation for later reading. Both are good candidates for a first book. But, right now, I’d recommend A Murder is Announced, because it combines humor and social observation with an outstanding final revelation – the best of both worlds! It’s a completely satisfying mystery, fairly clued and really well drawn with interesting characters who leap off the page. It showcases her strengths as an author. If you’re not hooked by Christie after reading it then she’s really not for you. 

I have to say I’m loving all the Marple love here! But now it’s time to roll in the big guns: I’m honored to include a suggestion from Dr. John Curran, perhaps the foremost authority today on Christie and the author of my favorite reference work on her methods. If you happen to be unfamiliar with Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks and its companion volume, Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making, John’s presentation and analysis of the dozens of notebooks in which Christie plotted her novels is an invaluable and endlessly fascinating look into the author’s process. Whenever I write about a Christie novel, John’s books are the first I turn to. I was so curious to learn which of her books John would suggest someone turn to first:

“I always recommend And Then There Were None. Not only is it a matchless exercise in suspense, but it is also a fascinating technical exercise; as Christie herself explained she wanted to see if she could devise a plot in which all the characters died, without the story becoming ridiculous or the murderer obvious. She described the book as ‘clear, straightforward, baffling’.  As proof, it is the best-selling crime title. Ever.”

This choice is special to me because ATTWN was my first Christie. There are those who would argue that it should not be one’s first read for several reasons. First, it is in many ways unlike any of her more “typical” mystery fare. It is more audacious and much darker in tone, and while it is certainly a whodunnit, it is neither structured nor clued in typical fashion. It is also considered by many, including myself, to be her finest work, and aren’t we supposed to save the best for last. 

To all that I say Bushwah! This was my first and it paved the way for a lifetime of devoted reading and study. I’ve read ATTWN perhaps a dozen times, and I always find something new in it. Plus, as I study Christie’s canon, I continue to find interesting links between her masterpiece and others of her books that came before and after. And so, is And Then There Were None my own selection for a Christie First Read? Well . . . no, actually, for I have another title in mind. 

Yes, there are presently nine titles on our list, and you know the perfect number is ten. Of course, I had the advantage of seeing what the others had picked. I also reached out to my friend Scott K. Ratner, actor, Christie scholar, and professional contrarian! Scott is famous for his strong opinions on everything from fair play mysteries to Christie’s The Mousetrap. He even wrote and performed his own play, Kill a Better Mousetrap, as a response to the enduring popularity of Christie’s record-breaking classic. 

To my dismay, Scott declined to suggest a title for a first read, but that didn’t stop him from sharing his decided opinions on which Christies he felt would not make a good choice:

“My problem is with books that are dependent for their surprise upon the reader never even once entertaining the possibility of the culprit’s guilt prior to the revelation . . . I’m particularly referring to works such as The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (and thus also Endless Night), Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (thus The Mousetrap), Peril at End House (thus, The Mirror Crack’d and, yes, arguably even A Murder Is Announced) and Crooked House. The primary deception in these works is the mere fact that *REDACTED LIST OF MURDERERS* are not even considered as possibilities by many readers – thus their monumental power of surprise for many readers. However, if they are considered, even once, the power of the solution is significantly diminished. That is, they are deceptively fragile to anyone who recognizes that anyone could be the killer in a whodunnit. And thus, the first-time reader who is not floored by Roger Ackroyd might easily come to the conclusion that the culprits in Christie works are always the one person in the story who is categorically considered above suspicion, i.e., that there is no psychological complexity to her puzzle-plotting deception.”

I take Scott’s point, even if I don’t necessarily agree with it. It was my good fortune to come upon Christie pretty much on my own, choosing each successive read based on finding new titles in bookstores and purchasing them without knowing any more about them than what I read on the cover blurb. In that way, the “special” titles that Scott mentions were scattered throughout my reading history of sixty-six novels and over a hundred short stories. Even as the very young reader I was, I grew accustomed to Christie changing up her detectives, switching from whodunnits to thrillers and back, and providing every kind of ending, with various levels of surprise. After And Then There Were None, my second read was Murder on the Orient Express – and after that, you can be sure that when I approached Christie, I was ready for anything.

Or so I thought!

When I think of Christie’s strengths, I think about mysteries with an excellent hook, an agreeable cast of suspects, a clever use of both clueing and carefully constructed prose, and a solution that manages to work in some clever reversals. Christie wrote a lot of these; some of them, in fact, account for her most iconic surprise endings. But it just so happens that my choice of Best First Read is not one of Scott’s “special” titles.

My selection is After the Funeral, which just may be my favorite Hercule Poirot mystery. Its opening is both shocking and hilarious: Richard Abernethie has died leaving the fortune he made manufacturing Coral Cornplasters to his needy and not altogether satisfying family. But then eccentric Aunt Cora appears at the funeral and shakes things up with her delightfully inappropriate observation: “But he was murdered, wasn’t he?” 

It’s no wonder that Cora is brutally slain a few days later, and Hercule Poirot is brought in to find out which of the greedy relations let fear guide their slaying hand. From the start, Poirot’s investigations are extra satisfying because he enters under cover as M. Pontarlier, representative from the imaginary war relief agency UNARCO. As a foreigner, Poirot is so invisible to the Abernethies that they freely chat and argue in front of him – and one of them incriminates themselves. Funeral contains my favorite physical clue in the canon, one that is so expertly dispensed through casual chatter that most people will never notice it. It also contains several passages that display the author’s adept understanding of the psychology of mystery readers. If there’s one thing we long-time Christie fans have learned to our peril, it is the importance of reading carefully!

Well, there you have it, folks: ten sure-fire recommendations of what to give that special somebody who has the unmitigated gall to have not yet read Agatha Christie. We managed to find three titles each from the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, and one special book from the 1960’s. There are six titles featuring Hercule Poirot, three with Miss Marple, and the one stand-alone to end all stand-alones. 

1. Peril at End House (1932)
2. The ABC Murders (1936)
3. And Then There Were None (1939)
4. Evil Under the Sun (1941)
5. The Body in the Library (1942)
6. Five Little Pigs (1942)
7. A Murder Is Announced (1950)
8. Mrs. McGinty’s Dead (1952)
9. After the Funeral (1953)
10. The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side (1962)

All in all, not a bad day’s work. I want to thank my dear friends for contributing to this project. I have left links to all their incredible writing and other scholarship within their introductions. It is due to their expertise that we managed to come up with the one-and-only, definitive list of perfect starter Christies . . . . . . . Of course, if you gathered the fourteen of us together in, say, three months and asked us the same question, I wonder what our list would look like . . .

It’s a tricky game we play.