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1930s Omnibus
The Sittaford Mystery
Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
And Then There Were None
Murder is Easy
Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
And Then There Were None
Murder is Easy
752 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1939
10 people are currently reading
207 people want to read
About the author
Agatha Christie
5,794 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 - 12 of 12 reviews
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May 2, 2022I borrowed this book from the library really only because I remembers that Agatha Christie had a special mug for drinking cream. Apparently every day she would drink a pint of cream - but just the one. Tragically I could not work that fact into any of the reviews of the other Agatha Christie books I have rambled on about so naturally I was obliged to read another just so I could share it with you. I don't know if she drank single cream , double cream or whipping cream ; but modestly she just had the one pint each day.
The Sittaford Mystery
Christies seemed to get bored with her lead character a couple of times and moved on to another, mildly interesting in that there is something like a rivalry or a race between two characters to solve the case. It comes close to combining the genres of murder mystery and Romance, reminding me of the two neighbouring bookshops on charing cross road in London, one specialising in romantic fiction, the other in crime writing, the owners married and merged the bookshops, but I think the bookshop is gone now, I don't know if the owners are still married . The solution felt extremely arbitrary, but there is an interesting expansion of plausible suspects for about half the story, and some references to The hound of the baskervilles
The local detective uses a Devon dialect word, but thereafter speaks purely standard (British) English.
Why didn't they ask Evans another mystery with a romantic twist. That Christie ended the story with a lengthy confessional letter from the criminal explaining the plot and everything that had happened in the proceeding 190 pages illustrates that this tale is a bit convoluted and slightly melodramatic. There is a fair amount of dressing up, disguises, lucky rescues, drug rings, sinister Canadians, and a bit of golf.
It was amusing, if has a touch of Jeeves and Wooster, but I did have the sense that Christie was cranking the story out, plotting with the page count in view.
Murder is easy
Apart from the beginning and the ending, this story seemed very familiar, it reminded me of The Pale Horse which I saw on TV not so long ago: many apparently unconnected murders in picturesque English village, with a suspicion of witchcraft involved. Again a slight romance crossover. Apparently the story was at one point chopped about to turn it into a Miss Marple story
I was very aware of the picture postcard, or chocolate box, or biscuit tin setting, nostalgia as a selling point perhaps particularly for overseas readers. Nostalgia is not the right word, Christie's England is a bit of a fantasy, Constable's The Hay Wain, but with a motor car added, and a couple of dead bodies, half out of sight.
In the beginning of the story a second man is due to help in the investigation but Christie forgets to write him in, or changed her mind and didn't edit her draft.
And Then there were none
Perhaps, or potentially, the most interesting of the bunch. Ten people invited to a small island off the Devon coast, where they die one by one. Are they murdering each other? Or is a hidden person killing them off? Is this an adult Lord of the Flies but with alcohol and tins of tongue? Again Christie chooses to close the story with a confessional letter - this time popped into a bottle and thrown into the sea - which conveniently washes up at Scotland Yard, personally I think some ambiguity would have improved the story. Christie however prefers to have everything explained away, I am not sure it quite works her way, but never mind . It's a decent yarn.
Overall, odd bits of racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and other prejudices, but since the people making the comments are mostly at best, murder suspects, I tried not to take too much offence - but I think the assumed reader is blond or blonde and blue eyed. It's noticeable that the characters are mostly a leisure class, some might have some kind of a job, but generally nothing that stops them from investigating murders or popping off to obscure islands to get murdered. I suppose given the large number of retired persons in Christie's stories, one can say that she is at least age positive .
I did find these stories flatter than the few Poirot stories I've read, but maybe that was just me, a reader effect.
Here and in the poirot stories she often has a metafictional joke, with one character telling another that what is happening is not like a detective story (ie it is real), perhaps this is a double sided joke as I don't think many readers would perceive Christie as a very realistic novelist.
The Sittaford Mystery
Christies seemed to get bored with her lead character a couple of times and moved on to another, mildly interesting in that there is something like a rivalry or a race between two characters to solve the case. It comes close to combining the genres of murder mystery and Romance, reminding me of the two neighbouring bookshops on charing cross road in London, one specialising in romantic fiction, the other in crime writing, the owners married and merged the bookshops, but I think the bookshop is gone now, I don't know if the owners are still married . The solution felt extremely arbitrary, but there is an interesting expansion of plausible suspects for about half the story, and some references to The hound of the baskervilles
The local detective uses a Devon dialect word, but thereafter speaks purely standard (British) English.
Why didn't they ask Evans another mystery with a romantic twist. That Christie ended the story with a lengthy confessional letter from the criminal explaining the plot and everything that had happened in the proceeding 190 pages illustrates that this tale is a bit convoluted and slightly melodramatic. There is a fair amount of dressing up, disguises, lucky rescues, drug rings, sinister Canadians, and a bit of golf.
It was amusing, if has a touch of Jeeves and Wooster, but I did have the sense that Christie was cranking the story out, plotting with the page count in view.
Murder is easy
Apart from the beginning and the ending, this story seemed very familiar, it reminded me of The Pale Horse which I saw on TV not so long ago: many apparently unconnected murders in picturesque English village, with a suspicion of witchcraft involved. Again a slight romance crossover. Apparently the story was at one point chopped about to turn it into a Miss Marple story
I was very aware of the picture postcard, or chocolate box, or biscuit tin setting, nostalgia as a selling point perhaps particularly for overseas readers. Nostalgia is not the right word, Christie's England is a bit of a fantasy, Constable's The Hay Wain, but with a motor car added, and a couple of dead bodies, half out of sight.
In the beginning of the story a second man is due to help in the investigation but Christie forgets to write him in, or changed her mind and didn't edit her draft.
And Then there were none
Perhaps, or potentially, the most interesting of the bunch. Ten people invited to a small island off the Devon coast, where they die one by one. Are they murdering each other? Or is a hidden person killing them off? Is this an adult Lord of the Flies but with alcohol and tins of tongue? Again Christie chooses to close the story with a confessional letter - this time popped into a bottle and thrown into the sea - which conveniently washes up at Scotland Yard, personally I think some ambiguity would have improved the story. Christie however prefers to have everything explained away, I am not sure it quite works her way, but never mind . It's a decent yarn.
Overall, odd bits of racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and other prejudices, but since the people making the comments are mostly at best, murder suspects, I tried not to take too much offence - but I think the assumed reader is blond or blonde and blue eyed. It's noticeable that the characters are mostly a leisure class, some might have some kind of a job, but generally nothing that stops them from investigating murders or popping off to obscure islands to get murdered. I suppose given the large number of retired persons in Christie's stories, one can say that she is at least age positive .
I did find these stories flatter than the few Poirot stories I've read, but maybe that was just me, a reader effect.
Here and in the poirot stories she often has a metafictional joke, with one character telling another that what is happening is not like a detective story (ie it is real), perhaps this is a double sided joke as I don't think many readers would perceive Christie as a very realistic novelist.
October 19, 2023
Of the four mysteries in this omnibus, I've only ever read And Then There Were None in its own book and loved it and it remains my favourite story in this collection. The other three are just as good (in order of personal preference: (1) Murder Is Easy, (2) Why Didn't They Ask Evans, (3) The Sittaford Mystery).
All of them feature one and done amateur detectives and no Poirot nor Miss Marple in sight.
All of them feature one and done amateur detectives and no Poirot nor Miss Marple in sight.
January 4, 2018
Great collection.
The Sittaford Mystery 4/5
Why Didn't They Ask Evans 3.5/5
Murder is Easy 3.5/5
And Then There Were None 4.5/5
The Sittaford Mystery 4/5
Why Didn't They Ask Evans 3.5/5
Murder is Easy 3.5/5
And Then There Were None 4.5/5
February 7, 2018
An enjoyable re-read of all four stories contained in this omnibus of stories AC wrote during the 1930s.
February 4, 2021
More Agatha Christie is never enough!
July 30, 2023
All I can say is brilliant, I’m a Agatha Christie fan , and I can read these books over and over again.
January 4, 2025
'Then there were none' was my favourite followed by 'Murder is easy'.
March 17, 2012
The Agatha Christie Omnibus is actually four of the mysteries that Christie wrote in the 1930's. I bought this book at the Agatha Christie museum bookshop in Torquay, Devon, England while there in June, 2011, brought it home, put in in a bookshelf and more or less forgot about it until January. While wondering what to read next,(?) I pulled it out and started to read. The first of the four stories, "The Sittaford Mystery," captured me immediately. I was instantly transported back to the Devon Moors and to the wonderful dialogue and accents of the area. If rating these stories separately, I would definitely give the "Sittaford Mystery," four stars. The next story, "Why didn't they ask Evans?" only gets three stars from me. "Murder is Easy," the third story was very clever. Christie's wonderful descriptive writing really shines throughout this one. People are so easy to visualize and the small Devon village of Wychwood-under-Ashe was described so well that I could see myself walking around with the characters in the story. Christie's mysteries are all so cleverly unfolded that I truly am caught off guard when the mystery is finally solved and the villain unmasked. "Murder is Easy" deserves four stars. The final story,(actually each of these stories is a separate novel that was published as such) is entitled "And Then There Were None." This is a classic Christie plot of people, strangers to each other, being thrown together in a place they cannot leave, daily watching their number decrease one by one and not knowing who the murderer is. This was especially fun to read because I had my suspicions proven wrong, one by one. I give this one four stars. I now want to read more Agatha Christie!
July 14, 2012
Christie's heroines are always interesting! What they may lack in attractiveness, they more than make up for in personality and character. No wonder the heros can't help falling for them. She manages to mix romance with sleuthing in a credible way.
January 3, 2016
Why didn't they ask Evans?! I had to buy this omnibus as i spent years pondering this question seeing the title on the list at the front of my other Agatha Christies. I enjoyed having the omnibus as they are a bit of a quick read.
November 27, 2014
A classic collection
With a host of plots and characters.Enjoyed the first three but felt a bit left down with "And then there were none".
With a host of plots and characters.Enjoyed the first three but felt a bit left down with "And then there were none".
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February 22, 2014
I love the way Christie brings all settings alive, and I instantly wish I was there. Eating teas on the lawn, dressing for dinner and solving the odd crime or two.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews