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Mistérios dos Anos 40
N or M?
Towards Zero
Sparkling Cyanide
Crooked House
Towards Zero
Sparkling Cyanide
Crooked House
664 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1949
4 people are currently reading
123 people want to read
About the author
Agatha Christie
5,798 books75k followersAgatha Christie also wrote romance novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, and was occasionally published under the name Agatha Christie Mallowan.
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End of London since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.
This best-selling author of all time wrote 66 crime novels and story collections, fourteen plays, and six novels under a pseudonym in romance. Her books sold more than a billion copies in the English language and a billion in translation. According to Index Translationum, people translated her works into 103 languages at least, the most for an individual author. Of the most enduring figures in crime literature, she created Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. She atuhored The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in the history of modern theater.
Associated Names:
Agata Christie
Agata Kristi
Агата Кристи (Russian)
Агата Крісті (Ukrainian)
Αγκάθα Κρίστι (Greek)
アガサ クリスティ (Japanese)
阿嘉莎·克莉絲蒂 (Chinese)
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End of London since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.
This best-selling author of all time wrote 66 crime novels and story collections, fourteen plays, and six novels under a pseudonym in romance. Her books sold more than a billion copies in the English language and a billion in translation. According to Index Translationum, people translated her works into 103 languages at least, the most for an individual author. Of the most enduring figures in crime literature, she created Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. She atuhored The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in the history of modern theater.
Associated Names:
Agata Christie
Agata Kristi
Агата Кристи (Russian)
Агата Крісті (Ukrainian)
Αγκάθα Κρίστι (Greek)
アガサ クリスティ (Japanese)
阿嘉莎·克莉絲蒂 (Chinese)
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 12, 2025
I don't normally read Murder-mysteries, - which is exactly how I started my review for In Muffled Night (1933) by the wonderful D. Erskine Muir. It was so good, but then I didn't have anything to compare it with - ok I watch Agatha Christie on TV and I've watched the whole series of Magpie Murders, with Lesley Manville, but the last time I read an Agatha Christie, was when I was about 10, and I remember it!
DEATH COMES AS THE END is a rather distinctive Agatha Christie. It's set in Egypt about 2000 BC and apparently is the only one of Christie's books, not to be set in the twentieth century.
Secondly and with pleasant coincidence David Schaafsma's review of Towards Zero appeared in my Feed with a strong recommendation, David's review.
I thought - here is the Queen who will provide a fine measure to help me compare and place the comparatively unknown D. Erskine Muir.
The beginning of Towards Zero has some fantastic writing. There is a particularly good conversation between husband and wife, Nevile Strange and Kay, which allows us to see how they met, their backstory and also a strong sense of their relationship. I also enjoyed the story which introduces us to the wonderful Superintendent Battle, there are only five books where he features, but I liked him very much, and then there are several astute conversations of various characters with the central figure of Lady Tressilian. She is an old lady, confined to her bed, but with her faculties very much in top form. There is also the immediate and rather sad backstory to Angus MacWhirter, who becomes a key character much later in the plot.
"But for them (and the tree!) it would have been over -". All of these introductory stories are extremely well done, and initiate the question of how they will come together.
Another separate but key character is that of Mr Treves, who is also introduced right at the beginning; "Even now," thought Mr Treves to himself, "some drama - some murder to be is in course of preparation. If I were writing one of those amusing stories of blood and crime, I should begin now with an elderly gentleman sitting in front of the fire opening his letters - going unbeknownst to himself - towards zero . . . "
The way in which Christie introduces these multiple threads and at least six principal persons, all at the beginning, and each with their own particular setting and history is masterful. It intrigued me, drew me in and immersed me completely, instantly into the life of all of these separate people, who will eventually meet and connect, over murder!
And so the murder is committed. Battle is called in plus his nephew Inspector Leach, with whom he happens to be on holiday - in the local area, St Loo (Looe in Cornwall) - and then almost immediately I lost interest. What develops is the tedious and utterly formulaic stages of a very realistic murder investigation. It is absolutely thorough and details all the questions and all the ins and outs and all possible scenarios of who was where, at what time. And who is who in relation to everyone present. This step by step process is broken up with various conversations that take place between the suspects; each conversation allowing us more insights into the motives and moral character of whoever is speaking; and they are all together in Lady Tresillian's house, Gull's Court. This section probably accounts for about two thirds of the whole - and I read through it at top speed, because I don't like the ins and outs, the drip-feed of information which is designed to mislead and beguile us into false conclusions.
Maybe I'm just not a suitable reader for murder-mysteries. I realise I prefer novels, whereby the characters play out normal psychological realities - and I understand the reasons why they do what they do. I most commonly read for the pleasure of setting, location, for thoughts, for contemplation - both the characters and myself - but most of all for wisdom imparted. Here is a good example of the type of "wisdom" I like: Battle speaking to his daughter Sylvia, who has been accused of stealing.
'You see, Sylvia, I've known all along with you, that there was something. Most people have got a weakness of some kind or another. Usually it's plain enough. You can see when a child is greedy or bad-tempered, or got a streak of the bully in him. You were a good child, very quiet - very sweet-tempered - no trouble in any way - and sometimes I've worried. Because if there's a flaw you don't see, sometimes it wrecks the whole show when the article is tried out.'
I think that is quite a profound statement, but it also backgrounds an important development in the plot.
I often think that writers are coerced or forced into boxes in terms of how they write. The plot details of uncovering the crime in this story are so boring because it is a writer going through the necessary - doing administration - a writer who is compelled to deliver the mathematics of a whodunnit. I would so preferred to have read more of what I was given at the beginning. The first third of this book is fabulous, but I can see how Christie, is more or less completing a sort of logical puzzle - how to bring these separate characters to the intersection of point zero. If only she had allowed her creative abilities to over-ride her logical plot structures, for me at least, she would have been a brilliant writer - give me an Erskine Muir over the Queen of Crime any day of the week !
Apparently there is a 2025 tv mini-series - see below:
Sorry, I should add a note about this edition - I found it on Internet Archive - it contains 4 mysteries from the 1940s, and I just read one of them - Towards Zero - because of David's review. I doubt if I will read the others, although Crooked House is in Christie's top 10 personal favourites, and Towards Zero - is no. 6 in that list.
"I found it interesting to work on the idea of people from different places coming towards a murder, instead of starting with the murder and working from that." - Agatha Christie.
DEATH COMES AS THE END is a rather distinctive Agatha Christie. It's set in Egypt about 2000 BC and apparently is the only one of Christie's books, not to be set in the twentieth century.
Secondly and with pleasant coincidence David Schaafsma's review of Towards Zero appeared in my Feed with a strong recommendation, David's review.
I thought - here is the Queen who will provide a fine measure to help me compare and place the comparatively unknown D. Erskine Muir.
The beginning of Towards Zero has some fantastic writing. There is a particularly good conversation between husband and wife, Nevile Strange and Kay, which allows us to see how they met, their backstory and also a strong sense of their relationship. I also enjoyed the story which introduces us to the wonderful Superintendent Battle, there are only five books where he features, but I liked him very much, and then there are several astute conversations of various characters with the central figure of Lady Tressilian. She is an old lady, confined to her bed, but with her faculties very much in top form. There is also the immediate and rather sad backstory to Angus MacWhirter, who becomes a key character much later in the plot.
"But for them (and the tree!) it would have been over -". All of these introductory stories are extremely well done, and initiate the question of how they will come together.
Another separate but key character is that of Mr Treves, who is also introduced right at the beginning; "Even now," thought Mr Treves to himself, "some drama - some murder to be is in course of preparation. If I were writing one of those amusing stories of blood and crime, I should begin now with an elderly gentleman sitting in front of the fire opening his letters - going unbeknownst to himself - towards zero . . . "
The way in which Christie introduces these multiple threads and at least six principal persons, all at the beginning, and each with their own particular setting and history is masterful. It intrigued me, drew me in and immersed me completely, instantly into the life of all of these separate people, who will eventually meet and connect, over murder!
And so the murder is committed. Battle is called in plus his nephew Inspector Leach, with whom he happens to be on holiday - in the local area, St Loo (Looe in Cornwall) - and then almost immediately I lost interest. What develops is the tedious and utterly formulaic stages of a very realistic murder investigation. It is absolutely thorough and details all the questions and all the ins and outs and all possible scenarios of who was where, at what time. And who is who in relation to everyone present. This step by step process is broken up with various conversations that take place between the suspects; each conversation allowing us more insights into the motives and moral character of whoever is speaking; and they are all together in Lady Tresillian's house, Gull's Court. This section probably accounts for about two thirds of the whole - and I read through it at top speed, because I don't like the ins and outs, the drip-feed of information which is designed to mislead and beguile us into false conclusions.
Maybe I'm just not a suitable reader for murder-mysteries. I realise I prefer novels, whereby the characters play out normal psychological realities - and I understand the reasons why they do what they do. I most commonly read for the pleasure of setting, location, for thoughts, for contemplation - both the characters and myself - but most of all for wisdom imparted. Here is a good example of the type of "wisdom" I like: Battle speaking to his daughter Sylvia, who has been accused of stealing.
'You see, Sylvia, I've known all along with you, that there was something. Most people have got a weakness of some kind or another. Usually it's plain enough. You can see when a child is greedy or bad-tempered, or got a streak of the bully in him. You were a good child, very quiet - very sweet-tempered - no trouble in any way - and sometimes I've worried. Because if there's a flaw you don't see, sometimes it wrecks the whole show when the article is tried out.'
I think that is quite a profound statement, but it also backgrounds an important development in the plot.
I often think that writers are coerced or forced into boxes in terms of how they write. The plot details of uncovering the crime in this story are so boring because it is a writer going through the necessary - doing administration - a writer who is compelled to deliver the mathematics of a whodunnit. I would so preferred to have read more of what I was given at the beginning. The first third of this book is fabulous, but I can see how Christie, is more or less completing a sort of logical puzzle - how to bring these separate characters to the intersection of point zero. If only she had allowed her creative abilities to over-ride her logical plot structures, for me at least, she would have been a brilliant writer - give me an Erskine Muir over the Queen of Crime any day of the week !
Apparently there is a 2025 tv mini-series - see below:
Sorry, I should add a note about this edition - I found it on Internet Archive - it contains 4 mysteries from the 1940s, and I just read one of them - Towards Zero - because of David's review. I doubt if I will read the others, although Crooked House is in Christie's top 10 personal favourites, and Towards Zero - is no. 6 in that list.
"I found it interesting to work on the idea of people from different places coming towards a murder, instead of starting with the murder and working from that." - Agatha Christie.
September 30, 2020
Ingenious as usual! Agatha Christie is a master of detective! Though I liked Sparkling Cyanide the best!
June 17, 2024
This was my first Agatha Christie read. I was expecting a detective novel, but I didn't get it. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised by the in-depth characters, almost all whom had the motive for murder. Christie does this so well, I have no idea how she plotted both infernally complex double-murders. The denouement is clever, not sure anyone would be able to guess it in advance. Almost everything in the book means something, so you had better be paying attention!
February 22, 2014
I should be listing each of the books included in all these omnibuses, it would make my book list soooo much longer!! Just remember, there are 4 books in each one!!
October 31, 2014
Aside from "N or M", I liked all of these, which were new-to-me Agatha Christie short stories.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews