Very nice article!  I enjoyed reading it.

I liked reading it too. You have a wonderful appreciation for Dame Agatha & her work.

Peril at End House & Sparkling Cyanide are also one of my favorites too!

Great job on the article!

Thanks a lot, guys!

Currently reading LORD EDGWARE DIES for the 3rd time or so. :)

Interesting article, one that I enjoyed reading, and well-written. I also appreciated the reference to John Dickson Carr, who is my 2nd favourite mystery author.

I'm a fan of John Dickson Carr too but find it so difficult to lay my hands on his books. Enjoyed the article, Yoshinori!

Puffinjill

I'm a fan of John Dickson Carr too but find it so difficult to lay my hands on his books.

That's probably half the reason I enjoy his books so much. I hunt them around everywhere I can that each Carr is a delight. I started collecting them after the library informed me they couldn't locate "The Eight of Swords" in any library for Interlibrary Loan. That was when my obsession began.

I now own 33 of his books (with 7 more due to arrive soon), and unlike AC, I don't rush through them. I take my time, I read them to really savour the mystery, I take breaks regularly to read other authors to appreciate him more.

This may be the most controversial thing I ever write on the site, but I'm fairly certain now that it is John Dickson Carr, not Agatha Christie, who is my favourite mystery author now.

Lucky you, having tracked down such an embarrasment of riches!!! I'm rather jealous! The number I have been able to get my hands on remains in single figures at the moment. Must find more, must find more....

I'm not sure it matters if you say you don't consider AC your absolute favourite mystery author. The point is you appreciate her work and, due to reading other writers works, can offer and share your interesting point of view.  I'm constantly reading, and not just AC, but I love to come back to her time and time again. Then my perspective is fresher. I imagine it is the same for you.

My total actually rose to 44 just yesterday, and I'll be adding even more most likely on November 6th, when I have a day off school and can go to a nearby town for some more. (Yes, I am an addict.)

I'm sure there is therapy available if you should need it! I've not had a great deal of luck with my local library service tracking many of these down. You certainly seem to be able to find them better than I can! Lucky old (maybe that should be 'young' if you are still at school, and lucky you for that too!) you!!! With that dreaded annual event fast appearing on the horizon (Christmas to you and me), money won't stretch to feeding my reading habit so I am destined not to add anything to my collection of ANY author for a couple of months. Weep for me when you are spending freely on your November shopping binge!!

Whose work did you read 1st Go_leafs? When I was young I read Enid Blyton Books but went from her to Christie and reading her encouraged me to read others so she may not be my favourite (Although I think she is) but If I hadn't read her books I might not gone on to others.

I heard of Carr first, actually, in a reference to one of his masterpieces, The Hollow Man. I completely forgot about it for a while, though, until after I read all AC's works (in just a year, mind!). Someone on Yahoo Groups recommended several authors, among them Carr. Suddenly, I remembered the reference to The Hollow Man, and decided to check the book out. I'm glad I did. The first two Carrs I read I actually guessed (they were very lucky guesses on my part; the books were Hag's Nook and The Hollow Man). Starting, however, from my reading The Problem of the Wire Cage, Carr has succeeded in bamboozling me in nearly every conceivable way. Once or twice I actually tumbled to the trick he was playing, but never the murderer.

Thanks for the article and for the defense of AC's characterization talent. The thought about AC's quasi-word pictures points out something I felt too, but what I wasn't able to express in words. They are quite difficult to translate - in Russian, for example, their literal translation sounds more clumsy. 

"Five Little Pigs" is one of my favourites,  largely for the phsychological derpth. The solution "4:50 from Paddington" is completely loltastic, though.I like Miss Marple as a character more then Poirot. However, Poirot books tend to be more dynamical and better plotted, in my experience.