The Essential Agatha Christie Stories

Agatha Christie

Not all of Agatha Christie's stories were novel length. She also wrote many short stories. Some featured her renown detectives like Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She wrote many that were great vignettes of other people as well. This is a group of 20 of those short stories. This collection appears to have been put together for audio, and they are all well read.

The readers include Hugh Fraser, David Suchet, Joan Hickson, Christopher Lee, Nigel Hawthorne, and Jonathan Cecil. Not all the stories are murders, but different mysteries. I especially like the twist in the murder mystery "The Red Signal". "A Fruitful Sunday" is a fun story; it's not exactly a mystery yet definitely has Christie's touch.

Hercule Poirot is busy in some of these stories. In "The Egyptian Tomb" he has to travel to Egypt and is not happy. His fastidiousness is offended from the time he boards the boat to get there until he has to walk in the sand of the desert. In another story, "The Chocolate Box" Poirot recounts one time when he failed to solve a crime.

Miss Marple is her normal, self-effacing, perceptive self. She's not in as many stories as Poirot, but she still sits there knitting , smiling, and the sagacity to solve the mysteries presented to her.

More than once I reminded myself that the story line/twist wasn't an old one reused. Instead, Christie developed many of these formulas. These are good stories and a great way to spend some time while driving.