When Good Adaptations Happen to Good Books by Chris_Chan

In a previous column, I complained about the disasters that can result when screen adaptations of Christie novels play fast and loose with the original source material.  I stand by my whining.  However, I feel that I need to follow up my previous, largely negative article with a companion piece describing what I like about Christie film adaptations. 

Although there have been a few hiccups along the way, the Poirot series starring David Suchet has been one of the finest programs on television for two decades and counting.  The Joan Hickson Miss Marple series is another gold standard for quality ...

• Posted 16 November 2009 at 9:13a.m. GMT
• 1 comment

Adapting Christie, or, How I Learned to Start Complaining and Hate the Changes by Chris_Chan

Fandom is a strange yet wonderful phenomenon.  Some professed “fans” of Agatha Christie are content to read the occasional Christie novel once in a while, when they have the time.  Other fans feel compelled to read every book that Christie ever wrote.  Still other fans seek out every movie and television adaptation of Christie novels ever filmed.  Some fans with the time and money to travel actually visits locations from Christie’s life and novels.  Then, there are fans like me, who want to help preserve, perpetuate, and polish Christie’s legacy.

Ever since the first film adaptations of Christie ...

• Posted 2 September 2009 at 1:45p.m. GMT
• 12 comments

How did Nadine Boynton know about the Orient Express Case in Appointment with Death by Chris_Chan

How did Nadine Boynton know about the Orient Express case in Appointment With Death?

By Chris Chan

(SPOILER WARNING!  THIS ESSAY CONTAINS POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS, CARDS ON THE TABLE, AND THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD.  READ WITH CAUTION.)

In Appointment with Death, the suspect Nadine Boynton asks Poirot to cease his investigation of her mother-in-law’s death, claiming that bringing the killer to justice would further destroy the lives of those who had suffered under the twisted matriarch’s mental sadism.  In order to justify her pleas for Poirot to abandon this case, she cites ...

• Posted 6 July 2009 at 6:58a.m. GMT
• 6 comments

CHRISTIE ADAPTATIONS ON THE RADIO by Chris_Chan

The movie, stage, and television adaptations of Christie’s work are well known and often discussed amongst Christie fans.  A fourth medium, radio, is much more obscure and often ignored.  Two of the major overviews of Christie’s work and adaptations of it, Dick Riley and Pam McAllister’s The New Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Agatha Christie, and Dennis Sanders and Len Lovallo’s The Agatha Christie Companion, discuss the movies, plays, and television adaptations, but both ignore the radio dramas.

This is a terrible shame, because some of the best and most interesting adaptations– as well as some ...

• Posted 14 May 2009 at 6:52a.m. GMT
• 5 comments

Did Achille Poirot really exist? by Chris_Chan

SPOILER WARNING!  THIS ESSAY CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE BIG FOUR AND CURTAIN.  DO NOT READ THIS ESSAY IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THESE BOOKS

We know very little about Hercule Poirot’s family life, and the few details that Poirot reveals may not be reliable, since he often makes up details about his wife to advance his investigations.  For example, in one story in Poirot Investigates, Poirot lies and claims to have a sick wife in order to gain entrance into an apartment.  There are a few references to his career as a Belgian police officer, but he rarely speaks ...

• Posted 6 April 2009 at 9:38a.m. GMT
• 3 comments

What are the true circumstances of the death of Claudia Hardcastle by Chris_Chan

SPOILER WARNING!  THIS ESSAY CONTAINS SPOILERS TO THE SOLUTION OF ENDLESS NIGHT.  DO NOT READ THIS ESSAY IF YOU HAVE NOT READ ENDLESS NIGHT!!!

Endless Night is widely considered to be one of the best novels from the later years of Christie’s career.  Christie and her husband, Max Mallowan, both ranked Endless Night as one of their favorite books, and many critics share this sentiment.  There are many reasons to support this assessment.  Both plotwise and thematically, Endless Night is very different from most of Christie’s other mysteries, and it also contains well-developed central characters and particularly intriguing ...

• Posted 8 March 2009 at 7:46a.m. GMT
• 3 comments

The Domineering, The Meek and the Downright Gullible by Tony_OSullivan

One of the many interesting features of Agatha Christie’s work is her recurring focus on the dynamic that exists between strong forceful characters and subdued introverted ones. Throughout her work, these two character types are brought together in many different guises and through a wide variety of circumstances. From the sadistic bully that is Mrs Boynton, who exerts total control over her traumatised family in Appointment With Death, published in 1938, to the self-righteous Mrs. Price-Ridley who holds sway over the subordinate Miss Hartnell and Miss Wetherby over tea and gossip in St Mary Mead ( The Murder at the ...

• Posted 5 February 2009 at 7:49a.m. GMT
• 3 comments

The Works of Agatha Christie R.I.P. by William_Friend

Irrelevant. Dated. Dead.

These are just a few adjectives which the following article is going to apply to the works of Agatha Christie. It may make your blood boil temporarily – but hopefully you’re enough of a fan to be so wholly scandalised that anyone has the audacity to write this, you will continue to read long enough for the article to explain itself.  In 1920 ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’ was published and the crime genre was never the same again. With the effortless introduction of hallmarks we now refer to as ‘clichés’ and the addition to British ...

• Posted 5 January 2009 at 9:52a.m. GMT
• 7 comments

Playing the Game by Chris_Chan

First of all, I want to welcome all of the Agatha Christie fans who are visiting this blog.  I hope that you enjoy my essays, and that what I write helps to enhance your appreciation for the works of Agatha Christie.

I intend to produce several different styles of essays.  Some of what I write will be critical essays, evaluating some of Christie’s work or certain adaptations of her stories.  Others may be factual essays about real-life crimes that may have affected Christie’s work, or true anecdotes about Christie’s impact on fans.

Other essays that I write ...

• Posted 18 November 2008 at 9:36a.m. GMT
• 4 comments