Reading detective fiction has been one
of my favourite pastimes since childhood. Many of these still remain my
favourites because of the fact that they are so readable and at times so
forgettable. Among such books, Agatha Christie’s works stand first and
foremost.
Her detective fiction gives a kind of “aha”
feeling, which can be compared to the exhilaration that one feels on putting
together a jigsaw puzzle. Now wonder, the historian Romila Thapar advises her
research students to read Agatha Christie to enhance gestalt thinking or the
ability to see the whole picture. As these books belong to the category of
popular fiction, they are easy to read and intellectually stimulating at the
same time.
Her most famous detective is Hercule
Poirot who has been immortalised on the small screen by David Suchet. Poirot is
a retired police officer from Belgium who is known for his penchant for
detecting crime. He is described as short, with his head the shape of an egg,
moustache always well-trimmed and shining, and with good manners. He is shown
as obsessed about neatness and order, be it solving the case or his
attire. The most famous among Hercule Poirot novels are Hallowe’en
Party, Five Little Pigs, Elephants Can Remember, The Adventure of the Christmas
Pudding, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Appointment With Death and Murder
in Mesopotamia.
Miss Jane Marple is one of Christie’s
detectives who views human life everywhere the same as in her village of St.
Mary Mead. She is an elderly spinster who is very observant and manages to
ask the right questions at the right time. Some of the books with Miss Jane
Marple as the detective are The Murder at the Vicarage, The Body in the
Library, A Murder is Announced, They Do It with Mirrors, A Pocket Full of Rye, 4.50
from Paddington, At Bertram's Hotel, Nemesis and Sleeping Murder. My favourite is At
Bertram’s Hotel, which is about a nightmarish world where some very
innocent people are framed for crimes they have not committed and the police
recognizes a gang of lookalikes who manage to get away with it.
Though not so numerous as the Hercule
Poirot mysteries or the Jane Marple stories, there is the couple Tommy and
Tuppence. Her true names are Thomas Beresford and Prudence Beresford and they
appear in stories such as Partners in Crime, The Secret Adversary, N
or M?, By the Pricking of My Thumbs and Postern of Fate. Tuppence is
shown as a charismatic young lady who manages to keep her head in cases
involving mafia or espionage.
Though there are chances of reading an
earlier read Agatha Christie by mistake, most of the time, it goes completely unnoticed.
No comments:
Post a Comment