(I have spoilered this for my mention of something from The Man in the Brown Suit as well as for one from this stroy.)

Aaah, last month I bad mouth Christie's plucky heroines and her adventure stories, so now we go to the exception, for me at least.  I fully enjoy Bundle Brent, and I love this story.

Dame Agatha introduces us a to some characters that we will meet and enjoy again, the aforementioned Bundle, the always put out Lord Caterham (was he inspired, possibly, by Sir Eustace Pedlar from last month's story, or at least the persona he used before the denoument) and the stone-faced (but with a twinkle in his eye) Supt. Battle.  We also meet Bill, who we will meet again, but he is, IMHO, a much less interesting character.

In addition to these excellent characters, we get a full cast of one-off stars, a Ruritanian political farce, a bit of decoding, and some confusion of people's names, something thay will become a Christie staple.

All in all, a fun romp with entertaining and attractive people, in a lovely English setting, along with some wonderful melodramatic "Comrades of the Red Hand".  Christie does a good job of maintaining the proper lightness of touch in a story that containes more comedy than tragedy.

It is interesting that you mention making it into a TV drama.  I hadn't realized, until I looked at the wikipedia page on this story, that Christie adapted it into a stage play that was finally performed within the last few years (no one apparently knows why it wasn't performed when originally intended, then the script was lost for many years.)

Now, the fact that Christie did the adaptation does not necessarily mean that it is a great adaptation.  I dislike her adaptation of "And Then There Were None", for instance, but it would a good starting point.

do you or anyone know who was in the Stage pRODUCTION?

"Chimneys" had its US debut at the International Mystery Writers' Festival in Kentucky last year.  It won a bunch of awards- you can see some details here:

http://www.newmysteries.org/

Thanks for that link.  I would have loved to have seen that.  I think I will drop a line to our local Civic Theatre group and put a bug in their ear about it.  They performed The Mousetrap a while back, and it was quite well done.

When reading this book, I've always thought that Peter Sallis would make a good Lord Caterham. I suspect that he's too old now to do this, unfortunately.

I love this book. I find it is one of those books that I can pull out every few years and re-read.

I love this book. I find it is one of those books that I can pull out every few years and re-read.

OOPS, posted in the wrong spot this is my FAVORITE AC book! i used to have to name my fave book for my kids (they would make mother's day books for us) i ALWAYS said "the secret of chimneys" or "the abc murders"! i've always wondered what the teachers thought about that

I definitely agree, I have searched the net for a video format and couldn't find any.