Parker Pyne Investigates (1934)

Plot: Are you happy? If not consult Mr Parker Pyne.

This delightful collection of short stories goes off the deep end early and alters direction in mid-air. Parker Pyne is a detective who simple tries to make people happier. In his first story he saves a marriage by providing a neglected wife with a dashing gigolo. And that's it.

In the second story, it's a bored military man who finds excitement, thanks to a damsel in distress and the work of novelist Ariadne Oliver, who Mr Pyne occasionally employs to conjure up exciting fantasies.

These first two stories contain an almost identical set-up, and roll out with all the twists of a neatly ironed shirt... 

By story three, Christie seems to have grown bored already. It's like she can sense that there's little drama here (certainly compared to how The Labours of Hercules treats a similar idea of a neglected wife and a philandering husband). So what does she do? First she plays a trick on Mr Pyne, and then she sends him on holiday. His last case before he does this contains the remarkable homily:

“What is truth? It is a fundamental axion of married life that you must lie to a woman.”

Before this can get any worse, thankfully Mr Pyne rocks up in the Middle East, site of Agatha Christie's best stories. He's in a world or ruins, natives and archaeology. We find him quoting (a forgotten poet) Flecker's lines about the “Postern of Fate” and one story is even called “Death On The Nile”. If, at this point, you can spot the difference between him and Hercule Poirot, you're doing quite well. These are broadly interchangeable adventures – Christie has abandonded her earlier idea of making people happy and instead headed off for more rewarding and more familiar ground.

That doesn't make the collection bad, by any means – but the atmospheric travel romps of the second half are just much more rewarding than the first half which presents Christie with a rigid formula which she has to work hard to shake herself free of. 

Third Girl (1966)

Plot: Dolly birds on disco drugs! Poirot sails into the sixties!

Yet more japes with Ariadne Oliver and Hercule Poirot, this time set in the wild whirl of sixties flatshares. Things have come quite a way from the boarding house of Hickory Dickory Dock - we're in a world where three young gals pal up in a flat, swapping chit chat over morning coffee and sharing gossip about their come-downs:

"I was up too late last night," Frances said, "... Basil would make us try some new pills - Emerald Dreams."

Now, don't roll your eyes. Despite all this lunacy it's all very jolly. Christie's always been quite blase about drugs, and despite this odd hiccup, the relentless sang-froid actually suits the feel of the story - which is a bit like that Murray Lachlan Young poem "Everyone's Taking Cocaine".

The constant drugs form an important background, as underneath all this (slight spoilers) is the suspected Gaslighting of poor Norma the Third Girl. Is she really a mentally disturbed murderess? Is she taking refuge in drugs? Is she doing things unconsciously? Or is something stranger happening? The truth is both interesting and complex, and shows Christie experimenting with a whole new type of murder and a whole new type of poisoning.

The trick that Christie is pulling is actually very clever, as she uses the drugs both as a red herring and as a key ingredient, and also uses them to misdirect you away from what's really going on (which has slight echoes of Curtain).

Both Poirot and Ariadne are clearly very old here - in fact, the whole mystery starts because Norma takes one look at Poirot, nearly tells him everything and then says "I'm sorry, but you're too old" and rushes out of the room.

In a way this is the story of the Golden Age of Crime trying to come to terms with the 1960s. Although, what actually happens is that the Golden Age storytelling tames the 60s. Gradually Christie stirs some familiar ingredients into the new age - so we get a country house, a mysterious old colonel writing his memoirs, a sinister foreign nurse, and a ruggedly heroic doctor type who is planning on emigrating to the colonies. Elements that Christie cannot control she cunningly unleashes Poirot on, so we see him running an espionage network, and even arranging a kidnapping from a greasy spoon cafe.

Ariadne Oliver is as splendid as ever, and gets to go on a secret mission, attend an artist's studio party, and get clubbed unconscious. The latter act has curious similarities to the indisposal of Tuppence in By The Pricking Of My Thumbs - surely, you think later, it would have been easy to murder the old love? But then we'd be denied a great character.

Talking of characters, we get a lovely old loopy colonel who manages this week's winning racist remark about Poirot:

"A clever chap but a thorough frog, isn't he? You know, mincing and dancing and bowing and scraping."

Again, not a *great* book, but a thoroughly lovely rattle of a read which gets away with it.

Dead Man's Folly (1956)

Plot: A murder mystery game turns real.

You're in for a bit of a surprise with Dead Man's Folly. It pulls off that strange late Christie trick of being very readable and entertaining whilst being... er, not very good.

Things that suck:

1) The murder of a child.
Christie just sails into this without even a flicker of sentimentality. Poor Marlene Tucker is vulgar, which kind of marks her out for death. There's even the monstrous moment where a doctor is asked if it's a sex crime: "I wouldn't say so, no. I shouldn't say she'd been a very attractive girl." Marlene's family are treated similarly badly with mutterings about their grubbiness, nagging, and general weakness. Her mother's reaction is a mixture of sobbing grief and a lament that her husband won't get his chance at the coconut shy now.

2) Not with Poirot around
By now, surely, you'd know better than to stage a murder with Poirot on the scene? We've encountered this problem before in Death On The Nile, but this is a positive trumpeting, arranging for Poirot to be on hand for a pre-determined death. Are we supposed to believe that murderers are brashly over-confident?

3) The whole reason for the crime
When you realise what's causing all this, you do have a sudden spike of worry. Is that really all it comes down to? There are about three different solutions that would avoid any homicide. One of which is to claim mumps, the other is to rush off shopping and leave a note. It's genuinely a case where murder just seems like a lot of trouble just to avoid an awkward social occasion.

4) The ending
It's not just rushed, it's a positive cascade of revelation. Many of the facts are Utterly New to the reader. There's no feeling of "Oh, if only I'd realised" just a lament of "Oi, that's not fair!". This is offset by the marvellous symbolism of Poirot's last act which makes the entire book make sense.

But what's to love about this book?

1) Ariadne and Hercule
Christie's fictional alter ego bumbles through the book brilliantly. She's outraged at learning that "apparently she drinks like a fish" and is all mad hair and scatty schemes that make her great fun - and Poirot positively softens under her influence. The two balance each other nicely and make for a great pair.

2) The Idea
There's a story in "While The Last Lasts" based on a treasure hunt Christie was asked to devise. Here we see a whole mystery built up around a murder game... the only shame is that the game is abandoned so quickly, and proves to be almost incidental to the actual murder (a good hard shove on a dark night would be a lot subtler).

3) The Parallels
Ariadne Oliver's mind creates some bizarre characters for her game - outlandish grotesques who all, eventually, turn out to have their twins somewhere in the book. It's a clever way of Christie getting away with a larger-than-life plot while at the same time mocking the extravagances of crime fiction.

4) Mrs Folliat
The lapsed gentlewoman is lovely. We've come a long way from the roaring gals of the 1920s to the genteel poor. Mrs Folliat is a proto-Audrey Fforbes-Hamilton, renting out the lodge while her stately home is occupied by newcomers. She maintains her social position almost effortlessly, and behaves with perfect grace as the real lady of the manor. It's a very complicated, bittersweet portrait of fallen grandeur, and Christie pulls it off brilliantly... especially when we realise that Mrs F's sacrifices have been more severe than we originally realised.

5) Lady Stubbs
The naively manipulative wife is another great portrait. Everyone involved announces that she's a really very stupid women, and yet no-one can quite escape her simpering manipulation. She manages to dominate the book while spending quite a lot of it absent, usually tucked up in bed.

There are also a lot of familiar themes knocking around - impersonation, long-lost relatives, sinister spies, dangerously smooth foreighners, and even the terrible mayhem wrought by a new wife...

Yes, it may be a bit of an odd read, and not one of the best, but it's still very rewarding.