I like Tommy and Tuppence, and I know I've read N or M, but it's been years.

I think I've read all of AC at least twice over the years. Funny thing is though that I'd be able to pick up, read and still enjoy for another reading. her books are like those comfy slippers, slightly old but unable to give up.

A very good description of an AC book!

Reply to post #16 (show post):
I just finished readin N or M. It is a delightful book. I love Tommy and Tuppence and how they complement each other as they investigate crimes.

I've been enjoying watching old episodes of Miss Marple with Joan Hickson playing the lead. Very enjoyable. I need to reread Agatha's books some day.

For all the mysteries I read, I rarely watch them on tv. I need to check out Joan Hickson.

I went on a Christie and Sayers DVD binge over Christmas ... VERY comfy entertainment!

(Btw, did you know that Christie herself had picked Joan Hickson for the role of Miss Marple, as early as in the 1940s, after seeing her act in one of her plays? Joan Hickson talks about this in an interview for a TV feature included as bonus on one of the DVDs.)

Reply to post #22 (show post):
I had no idea! Hickson is by far my favorite Miss Marple.

Reply to post #23 (show post):
Mine, too. I grew up on the Rutherford movies (they're insanely popular in Germany, and many people here actually think this is how Christie wrote the character) -- I still like them for Margaret Rutherford's sake, but as for the "real" Miss Marple, Joan Hickson just doesn't have any equals.

The story, as Joan Hickson herself tells it, is that after one of her performances Christie sent a note backstage telling her how much she had enjoyed the show, and adding "One day, I hope, you will play my Miss Marple." Pity that by the time they finally got around to producing those features, Agatha Christie was already dead!

I love hearing behind the scenes stories like this. They add a lot of depth when you are watching the shows.

I'm in the middle of Murder at the Vicarage. I think the plot point of having both the lovers confess because they think the other one did it feels overused.

Reply to post #26 (show post):
That's undoubtedly true nowadays, but Christie was one of the first (if not the first) mystery author to use it. A case of "the demons that I called ..."? -- Also, there's a twist to it that comes out in the final solution which still distinguishes this from other uses of that particular plot device ... (hide spoiler) in that the lovers deliberately use a false double confession to deflect attention from the fact that they really are the murderers. I think this is rather neatly done, actually.(show spoiler)

I'm less convinced the technical construction of the murder as ultimately revealed would actually have worked, though. Fortunately Christie doesn't rely on convoluted methods like this one all too frequently, because whenever she does, I'm going "nope, forget it, no way would this work reliably in real life!" She does something even more lurid in "Hercule Poirot's Christmas," which is one of my favorite AC mysteries and -- if only for sentimental reasons -- a fixture in my annual Christmas DVD canon ... except for the final revelation of the method of murder, which routinely makes me snort!

You're undoubtedly right that she was the first one to use this plot point and then it's been copied too many times by far inferior writers including soap opera writers and sit-com writers.

Certainly for the murderers to succeed in Vicarage, a lot of things had to come together exactly right. One neighbor showing up at the wrong time or the maid wandering in to tidy up or any of a million other things that routinely happen would have ruined the plan. It wasn't fool-proof at all.

Not to mention the details regarding the "contraption" used (hide spoiler) to simulate a gun shot(show spoiler) ...

Yes, that was a bit odd.