The ABC of murder mysteries
THE combined intellectual might of Sherlock Holmes, Philip Marlowe and Hercule Poirot might struggle if charged to discover the identity of the greatest mystery writer of all time. Even taking a handful of the greats at random — Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Elmore Leonard, Raymond Chandler — throws up the first problem, that they all wrote different kinds of mystery novels.
If we employ a little bit of Sherlock Holmes perversity, however, and ignore the problem in order to change the question, then the answer to who is the most enduringly popular mystery writer becomes crystal clear.
Agatha Christie has sold roughly four billion books since Hercule Poirot appeared in her 1920 debut, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. The world’s best-selling mystery novel is And Then There Were None (1939) which has sold in excess of 100 million copies. She is the world’s most translated author, with her books translated into over 100 languages, and her play The Mousetrap, which opened in 1952, holds the record for the longest initial run, which now stands at 62 years and over 25,000 performances. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) was voted the best crime novel of all time by the Crime Writers’ Association in 2013.
It’s fair to say, then, that Agatha Christie’s reputation is secured. However, her popularity only seems to be growing, 38 years after her death. The Orient Express, with which she is inextricably linked, recently began running again between Paris and Venice, functioning in part as a mobile Agatha Christie museum. The Folio Society has just published a four-book set of Poirot novels, featuring an introduction from Anthony Horowitz. And Sophie Hannah, the acclaimed English author of psychological thrillers, will publish The Monogram Murders in September, the first Hercule Poirot novel commissioned by the Agatha Christie estate.
Last year, the Bord Gáis Theatre hosted a sold-out run of The Mousetrap, and will host another production of the play in November of this year. Meanwhile, Christie’s play Black Coffee, featuring Hercule Poirot, is playing at the Bord Gáis Theatre until June 28.
“Her popularity is due to a combination of factors, a combination that no-one else ever mastered,” says Irish author John Curran, the world-renowned Agatha Christie expert and author of Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks.
“Clever and unfrightening puzzle stories, told in serviceable English, culminating in unexpected denouements and based on premises that are, essentially, simple: They all did it, the narrator did it, the policeman did it, the child did it, the most expected person — despite appearances – did it.”
Sophie Hannah concurs. “It’s because she places story-telling above all else, and people love story,” she says of Christie’s popularity. “Nothing is more important to Christie than hooking and intriguing the reader, and then dazzling at the end with the revelation of an unguessable solution.”
Many mystery writers have contrived ingenious hooks and unexpected denouements, of course, but Agatha Christie’s body of work has much more to offer, says Sophie, than clever plotting.
“Her novels are fun, easy reads that you can allow to wash over you, and they are also challenging intellectual puzzles that really test your brain power and intuition. They are light and humorous and witty, but also fully aware of the darkness and warped evil of which humans are capable. Most writers are either light or dark, easy or challenging. Christie can do everything, and better than everyone else can.”
Is she the greatest crime/mystery writer of all time?
“She is the greatest detective novelist of all time,” says John Curran, “not the greatest crime novelist. Her type of fiction was a very particular type, the classical detective story, and no-one ever did this form better. And no-one ever will, as this type of story has more or less disappeared.”
“Undoubtedly, yes,” says Sophie Hannah, “Which isn’t to say that she doesn’t have her limitations. But if we look at the mystery genre as being about the human psyche and what it’s capable of, as well as superb mysteries and lashings of suspense, you simply cannot beat Agatha Christie.”
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