The Twist In The Tail

I have no finally finished my first Agatha Christie novel, The ABC murders. As discussed earlier, it was driven by an interesting discussion on BBC Radio 4's 'good reads' programme, was it a good read? Yes, it was a very good read. I have thoroughly enjoyed every single page of the 'Hercule Poirot' murder mystery.

I particularly loved the almost alien language and writing style, a product of the book being nearly 80 years old itself. Yet, the language was fluid and carried me along with good descriptive passages and the pace is deceptively quick for a character, in Poirot, who is designed to be slow and thoughtful. It carries along at two speeds, a ripping yarn and above that the thought process of the Belgian unfolds above it and they meet simultaneously, in a beautifully written twist at the end that truly blew me away. 

Whatever my preconceptions were the one thing I was aware of, was Christie's love of a plot twist in the style of most thriller novels, and it seems tonbe arguable that she created the modern thriller novel and the format of which still influences a lot today. These plot twists in thriller /crime novels are like taxes, always there. Some can be terribly clunky and fit like a size 12 foot into a size 10 high heel and can be spotted a mile off. Yet, throughout my experience, self acknowledged through TV series and Films from memory using spent on a sunday afternoon as that's all the parent would allow us to watch as young kids because, well, quite frankly it was relatively harmless stuff for a young teen, was how the plot leads you down a particular path and then there was a grouping of individuals and then, boom, the plot twist and the un masking of the murderer with a perfect dissection of motive and execution. This is on telly and is impressive. However like most things involving the telly and books, the book trumps the telly. The plot twist in ABC murders is exquisite. It is a thing of great beauty, it is so well structured and delivered by, Poirot (Christie), with such precision and speed that it takes ones breath away. 

And this the crux of the matter. Agatha Christie, once you've stripped away the preconceptions, is a genius. I do not think there is doubt to this; her plot lines highlight a wonderfully limitless imagination. Her forensic powers provide her main characters with intelligence and observations so obvious yet unseen to others.

Her detective creations probably stand up to Conan Doyles 'Sherlock Holmes' to my mind, yet her writing style I probably prefer, though I prefer the character and flaws of the literary Holmes, above Poirot and still remain a little sceptical of the, 'Hastings' character, the Christie, Dr Watson and how many other writers have followed this Doyle, Christie formula of genius detective with more grounded sounding board, plodder. Colin Dexter's 'Morse', Ian Rankin's 'rebus' to name two obvious and popular examples. 

I am glad that I followed through on the good read advice, I thoroughly enjoyed every page of this book.a friend has lent me a, mrs maple book. I took the Poirot 'death on the orient express' out of the library and look forward to that; it has been a fun experience reading a literary character for the first time after experiencing the televisual character over many years, as portrayed by, David suchet. It is the same as watching all the James bond movies and then starting to read the Fleming novels and realising that the literary bond is remarkably different to the film bond. So, having now discovered Christie fo the first time, his ones now mean I v a huge coal seam of novels to extract by reading and this could keep me going for a whole plodding through the enormous back catalogue!