Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and more than 15 short story collections, most of which revolve around the investigations of such characters as Hercule Poirot, Miss Jane Marple and Tommy and Tuppence.

Christie had long been a fan of detective novels, having enjoyed Wilkie Collins , The Woman in White and The Moonstone as well as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's early Sherlock Holmes stories. Deciding to write her own detective novel, entitled The Mysterious Affair at Styles, she created a detective named Hercule Poirot to be her protagonist. A former Belgian police officer noted for his twirly.

moustache and egg-shaped head, Poirot had been a refugee who had fled to Britain following Germany's invasion of Belgium; in this manner, Christie had been influenced by the Belgian refugees whom she had encountered in Torquay. Christie's second novel, The Secret Adversary (1922), featured new protagonists in the form of detective couple Tommy and Tuppence; again published by The Bodley Head, it earned her 50. She followed this with a third novel, once again featuring Poirot, entitled Murder on the Links (1923), as well as a series.

of Poirot short stories commissioned by Bruce Ingram, editor of Sketch magazine.When Archie was offered a job organising a world tour to promote the British Empire Exhibition, the couple left their daughter with Agatha's mother and sister and travelled to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii.The couple learnt to surf prone in South Africa and in Waikiki became some of the first Britons to surf standing up.

Agatha Christie's first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920 and introduced the long-running character detective Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 33 of Christie's novels and 54 short stories. Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes, Christie was to become increasingly tired of her detective Poirot. In fact, by the end of the 1930s, Christie confided to her diary that she was finding Poirot insufferable," and by the 1960s she felt that he was "an ego-centric creep.".

However, unlike Doyle, Christie resisted the temptation to kill her detective off while he was still popular. She saw herself as an entertainer whose job was to produce what the public liked, and the public liked Poirot. Feeling tied down, stuck with a love interest, she did marry off Hastings in an attempt to trim her cast commitments

The nystery of the blue train

The Mystery of the Blue Train is

one of my favourite Poirot mysteries, partly due to the setting, and partly because the characters and their behaviour are interesting (and often amusing).

The novel begins in Paris, with the purchasing of a ruby necklace containing the fabulous Heart of Fire by the American millionaire Rufus van Aldin. An attempt is made that evening to waylay and rob him, but the attempt fails, and the reader is introduced to an enigmatic character who goes by the name of The Marquis, and to Mr Papadopoulous, dealer in antiques, art and jewels. Van Aldin returns to London unharmed and pays a visit to his daughter Ruth, who is unhappily and detachedly married to the Hon. Derek Kettering.

Van Aldin presents her with the necklace, and advises her to seek a divorce from her husband on the grounds of infidelity. Also introduced are Derek Kettering himself, and his mistress the dancer, Mireille who is able to tell Derek that his wife (with whom he evidently does not live), will be travelling shortly to the Riviera on the fabled Blue Train.

Katherine Grey, who has recently and unexpectedly inherited a lot of money from the elderly lady to whom she was a companion, also is planning to travel to the south of France on the Blue Train, and will be staying with a cousin, Lady Tamplin

Christie arranges all the characters on board the train with care, and manages to introduce Katherine to both Ruth and later, to Hercule Poirot, with whom she strikes up conversation. It is only when the train arrives at Nice that the grisly murder of Ruth Kettering, and the theft of her ruby necklace are discovered. Poirot offers his assistance to the local police, and Van Aldin himself, hurriedly summoned from London, asks his aid, which Poirot is pleased to provide.

Then follows a nice unravelling of the plot, with everyone having motive more or less Derek himself, who would have come into a lot of money on his wifes death; the Comte de la Roche, Ruths lover, a con-man who evidently planned to rob Ruth of the ruby, but in such a way that she could never admit to it; the mysterious Marquis; and Mireille, who wanted a rich lover (and would not have been averse to wearing the rubies). Katherine aids Poirot in his investigations, finds two admirers Kettering and Van Aldins secretary, Richard Knighton and returns to England.

I think the charm in this novel is in the logic and care with which Christie plots the eventual denouement is apt if dramatically revealed; however, she does play fair with the reader in having provided all the clues. The setting is nicely evoked, with sufficient detail that one feels in the warm sun of the Riviera, but without that detail overwhelming the novel, and there are several minor characters whom Christie allows to be amusing or instructive. Katherine is an appealing heroine, and I rather like the awkward Lennox Tamplin, Lady Tamplins daughter.

Book review
Agatha Christie didnt enjoy writing The Mystery of the Blue Train. In her autobiography she wrote that it had not been easy writing it and that she had always hated it:

To begin with I had no joy in writing, no lan. I had worked out the plot a conventional plot, partly adapted from one of my other stories. I knew, as one might say, where I was going, but I could not see the scene in my minds eye, and the people would not come alive. I was driven on by the desire, indeed the necessity, to write another book and make some money.

That was the moment when I changed from being an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you dont want to, dont much like what you are writing and arent writing particularly well. (pages 368-9)
As she was writing this book at the time of her disappearance and divorce from her first husband, Archibald Christie its hardly surprising. It may not be her best book, but its still a good read. Ruth Kettering, the daughter of millionaire Rufus Van Aldin, is married to Derek, against her fathers advice.

Agathas views on divorce are clear when Van Aldin tells Ruth she should divorce Derek, who he thinks is no good, rotten through and through and had only married her for her money, saying:

Have you got the grit to admit to all the world that youve made a mistake. Theres only one way out of this mess, Ruthie. Cut your losses and start afresh. (page 20)
Later Ruth is found strangled in her compartment in the Paris-Nice train, known as thetrain bleu, on its arrival in Nice and the fabulous ruby, the Heart of Fire that Van Aldin had given her, has been stolen. Fortunately Hercule Poirot is also travelling on the train and he of course unravels the mystery.

There are a number of suspects ranging from Derek and his mistress, the dancer Mirelle, who had both the motive and the opportunity, to Ruths lover, the Comte de la Roche, suspected of stealing the jewels

I liked the reflections on detective novels through a conversation Poirot has with another passenger on the train, Katherine Grey, from St Mary Mead who has inherited money from her employer. She is reading a roman policier when they meet at dinner and Poirot comments that they always sell well. She replies that may be because they give the illusion of living an exciting life and that nothing of that kind ever happens to me. From then on however, she is drawn into the mystery along with Poirot, that

small man, distinctly foreign in appearance, with a rigidly waxed moustache and an egg-shaped head which he carried rather on one side. (page 80)

The movie The mystery of the blue train

Bibliography - http://ela21.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/the-mystery-of-the-bluetrain-agatha-christie/ - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie

Emanuela XII-th D