‘It was Agatha all along’ why Agatha Christie is undoubtably the best

We all know that Agatha Christie is the greatest mystery writer of all time. 

You’ve probably heard a lot of compliments about Agatha Christie over the years. She writes the best plot twists. She defined the future of popular fiction. Every thriller writer currently publishing is writing in her shadow. With The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie confirms her legacy. She is undoubtably the greatest. 

I am in no ways a Christie expert (that title is reserved for a couple of my closest friends), but I have read a fair few of her novels over the past few years. During the first lockdown, I discovered how much I love a murder mystery (as opposed to contemporary thriller fiction). There is something about the dynamics of family, friends, or strangers stuck in one singular location that just appeals to me… I think this is partly the reason that I love a dinner party trope (yes Fleabag, I am looking at you). I found myself bored of reading about middle aged alcoholic women who are unrealisable narrators (partly because they are an alcoholic, partly because the author is judging their unfeminine approach to motherhood). The murder mystery might have a longer tradition (and for some be an overdone genre full of tropes), but the atmosphere is always great. They create a pressure cooker that reveals the worst in everyone involved. The distinction between the two genres relies heavily on the vibe for me. While both include different tropes, conventions, and narrative structure, the main difference between the two is that murder mysteries infuse the disturbing with the desired (most typically wealth).

As I became obsessed with novels like Lucy Folely’s The Guest List and films like Knives Out, I had to try out the queen of the genre. In some ways it is embrassing how little I knew about Agatha Christie’s work before picking one up. I am not ashamed to say that the main source of my knowledge is ‘The Unicorn and The Wasp’ episode of Doctor Who. In my humble opinion, this is one of the greatest Doctor Who episodes of all time. It features the best Doctor and companion due (David Tennant and Catherine Tate are second to none), a selection of iconic scenes (it is hard to forget the scene where the doctor requires something salty, but not as salty as salt), and it features many up and coming actors (watching it now, you may be surprised to notice that future Oscar nominee Felicity Jones has a major role). Yet despite knowing far too much about this episode, I knew very little about miss Christie herself. Basically, I knew that she once went missing and could name her most iconic titles. I was basically a civilian.

The first novel I picked up was And Then There Were None and this is hands down one of my favourite book concepts of all time. Since reading, I just have to pick up any book focusing on a group where one person dies on by one (and there are quite a few, Ruth Ware’s One by One being just one of a long list). With this novel Agatha Christie proved herself to be the creator of the best plots and concepts. Even though the who-done-it is perhaps not the most exciting reveal, the rest of the novel more than makes up for it. This is one reason why Christie is so great, the enjoyment of her books does not rely heavily on their ending. Many a thriller has been ruined by an ending that doesn’t quite make sense, but you won’t be upset by a Christie ending. Every detail is carefully plotted and designed. Regardless of whether you like her reveals, you cannot deny that it makes perfect sense. You couldn’t make a hole in them if you were a hole puncher.

Immediately after finishing this book (I mean this more literally then you are perhaps imagining) I picked up Murder on the Orient Express and this novel features my favourite plot twist I have ever read. I did start this novel knowing that she features this twist in one of her stories and yet I was still shocked and blown away. It is another perfect ending to a novel.

Since then, I have read a few more novels including Halloween Party, Death on the Nile, and The ABC Murders and I thoroughly enjoyed all of them (although, I did find Christie’s repetition of how annoying the murdered child Joyce is beyond frustrating). I was also privileged to witness the immersive experience of The Mousetrap. It was this fantastic play (and my friend Tyler) that finally encouraged me to pick up another of Christie’s iconic titles, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. This book made me realise what others have known for a long time. Agatha Christie is the greatest mystery writer of all time.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is another classic murder mystery and yet it subverts all of the traditions masterfully. It is the perfect mix of the known and the unexpected. Set in a small village, a widow dies and soon afterwards so does her dear friend Roger Ackroyd. The novel follows a local doctor and, everyone’s favourite detective Poirot, as they unpick this chain of events. What made this reading experience totally unique was that I guessed the ending AND I still loved it. I managed to predict who the murderer was and decipher a major earlier reveal. Don’t worry, this blog is not now going to turn into a lengthy humble brag. Instead, I am going to reassure that I am very dumb. The murderer normally has one over me. It is very rare for me to guess a who-done-it, and even in the rare case that I do, I never get all the details. This is why I was in love with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (in fact, I enjoyed it so much that I would call it my favourite mystery novel of all time). Even though I guessed what is for many a shocking reveal, I had less than no idea of how it could work. Christie is truly the master of making what civilians think as impossible entirely plausible within her world. When reading her novels, you are never unaware that she is far more intelligent than you are.

This blog post has been leading up to one final conclusion and it is one I have basically already stated earlier. No one ends a mystery like Agatha Christie. Sure, a writer might use the same concept or trope as Christie, but they cannot write like her at all. They cannot make you like a controversial ending, love a twist you knew was coming, or fascinated to disocver how who did it actually did it. The enjoyment of her novels does not rest on the ending, because her endings are always so well connected to the entire novel. No one writes an ending like Agatha Christie because they add an ending to their novel rather than naturally draw an ending out of a satisfying plot.

So Happy For You by Celia Laskey

There are many stories about individual weddings that gradually descend into chaos (a couple that immediately springs to mind are Bride Wars, Save the Date by Morgan Matson, Bridesmaids and even thrillers like The Guest List by Lucy Foley). Still, there are not many that detail the entire wedding industry in chaos. Until now. In So Happy For You, Celia Laskey reveals to her reader the hell-like direction the wedding industry is heading towards. She demonstrates that the wedding industry is already one step into purgatory, it just needs one last push into the full inferno of hell.

Set in the near future, Laskey follows Robin (a radical feminist lesbian who hates the wedding industry) as she writes her dissertation on the changes in the wedding industry and is asked by her somewhat distant old friend Ellie to be her maid-of-honour. In this Black Mirror-esque future, the wedding industry has gone in a logical but horrifying direction. By logical, I mean conceivable rather than understandable. The wedding industry, if possible, has become even more vain, materialistic, and sexist as demonstrated by the new dating app that rates women’s marriageability based on various factors such as their boob size.

Wedding superstitions become wedding charms. Brides are no longer just wearing someone old, something borrowed, and something blue, they are performing border-line satanic rituals. Animals are sacrificed, brides are kidnapped, and the blood of virgins is consumed. The true horror of the novel is that the reader can see the journey from one to another. Laskey’s future is scary but conceivable. In this way, it reminds me of The Handmaid’s Tale (a novel I compared to So Happy For You, even before Laskey directly references it). What Margaret Atwood does for fertility, Laskey does for marriage. In her novel, getting married is the ultimate social status and Ellie (as one of many 30-something women) is desperate to marry absolutely anyone (even a sexist, racist app-desiner) and do anything to make it work. Her sheer desperation takes the novel in some interesting directions. As the synopsis suggests, the wedding turns deadly for Robin.

One of the strengths of the novel is that Robin is not entirely likeable. Her hatred of the wedding industry makes her righteous – as the novel often points out, she is unable to even consider the perspective of others. She stands by her morals (which is an admirable quality) but this seems to make her incapable of gaining new friends – it alienates her from the rest of the wedding party and even causes tension in her relationship. The latter is much less explicit and more subtly done, other readers might not agree that Robin’s partner Amy was willing to compromise on this when Robin doesn’t. While Amy is a largely absent figure in the novel (she only directly appears once in the narrative), I am largely on her side. Amy seems amazing and deserves better.

While Robin is unlikable, she is, however, relatable. In fact, she is uncomfortably relatable. By telling the narrative from her point of view, Laskey forces her reader to relate to her. Not only are we, like Robin, able to see just how terrible the wedding industry has become, but we also realise that this view is not a perfect way to view the world. It is very pessimistic, judgemental, and preachy. Robin is like a lecturer who wants you to submit a paper re-stating their own view rather than a professor who encourages you to go in your own direction. Throughout the narrative, she is forced to come to terms with her stubbornness and accept that others can disagree with her without being wrong or immoral. I loved this aspect of the novel right until the very end. I don’t think the last chapter (or the last few chapters) was needed. In the final few chapters, Laskey’s subtle commentary (a la Black Mirror) became like an episode of Scobby-Do. It was not quite a full, ‘if it wasn’t for you meddling kids…’ speech, but it was eerily similar to one. Here, Ellie literally explains her motivations in a letter (a bit like And Then There Were None, but much less necessary) and Robin has an almost Scrooge-like transformation where she realises the error of her ways. In the end, Laskey ironically treats her reader like Robin treats Ellie. She views them as uneducated sheep rather than adults capable of their own opinions. This undermines the message of the novel. I have a sneaky feeling that the last few chapters were suggested by an editor who was desperate to decide that the message wasn’t explicit enough.

The rest of the novel is a subtle exploration of opposing views by exploring the unlikely long-time friendship between two people who are best friends in name only. While Ellie represents the extreme lengths people will go to in an attempt to construct the perfect wedding (and the consequential perfect marriage), Robin represents the opposite: the extreme lengths someone will go to in an attempt to disavow society’s idea of the perfect wedding. Through these characters’ opposition, Laskey suggests (without directly stating) that the reality is more complicated. Weddings are both problematic and enjoyable and it is okay to embrace this complexity.

Exploring Agatha Christie

In the past couple of months, I have read 4 different Agatha Christie novels – before this, I had literally never read one of her books. After doing a quiz on Agatha Christie and watching Knives Out I had a real itching to read some mysteries and I thought I should obviously start with the master. I also came to the conclusion that I prefer a whodunnit rather than a psychological thriller – mystery is often not a genre I pick up because I don’t find it fulfilling, but I do like a whodunnit. I thought I would test this theory out! Below I am going to discuss my feelings on the whodunnit murder mystery genre and see whether it is something that I like.

Before I discuss the Agatha Christie novels I read I think it is worth mentioning that I did read other mysteries during this period. I read The Guest List by Lucy Foley and The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Tutton. Both of these books I wanted to read because they gave me Agatha Christie vibes. The Guest List has a premise that reminds me of And Then There Were None and The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle reminded me of the stereotypical idea of an Agatha Christie novel with a twist. Both of these books I have mixed feelings about – more so than any of Agatha Christie’s novels. I liked some of the reveals but I wasn’t blown away by any of them – while some reveals were shocking they didn’t make me amazed by how clever it was. However, I must say that I don’t think the genre satisfies me in the way other genres are able to – I am not currently sure if I would ever rate one 5/5 stars. To hear more of my specific thoughts on these books, check out my July Wrap up.

Now onto Agatha Christie.

My favourite, and the first, book of her’s I read is And Then There Were None. I have mentioned many times on this blog how I flew through this book – after about 50 pages I was thoroughly engaged and couldn’t put it down. The reveal wasn’t my favourite, but I think that was more how it was done rather than the reveal itself. I found this book so intriguing and the plot of the novel was so different too other mysteries.

I also read Murder on the Orient Express. My experience of reading this book was definitely impacted by the fact that I knew how one of her books ended (without knowing what book it was) and it happened to be the ending of this one. Despite this, I think it is a fantastic novel – again I read this really quickly and was so interested in the clues and what was happening.

Sparkling Cyanide, the most recent of her books I have read failed to draw me in. This book has a slightly different structure and felt much slower.

Ultimately, I do think that murder mystery whodunnits are a genre that I really like. I just need to be more selective with what I read and perhaps not read so many of them in such a short period of time. This year I have found that I read a lot of the same thing (generally an easy to read genre) and then I have less of an interest in it going forward – I did the same thing with the romance genre earlier on this year. Hence, I should try and vary what I read more than I currently do. I imagine if I read one a month or every other month they might be able to have more of an impact on me.

I am, however, planning to read ABC Murders soon so my opinions might change even more – I will let you know if they do. I know I probably shouldn’t read another one so close to reading the last one, but I am doing it for a readathon so I don’t feel so bad about it.

I also think to test if whodunnits are my favourite mysteries I might need to read more of the genre. I think I might in the future aim to read a few domestic mysteries, or some other subsections of the genre, to test this out fully. I think I will give this a rest for the time being though.