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The
A.B.C. Murders, by Agatha Christie.
Agatha Christie's
Hercule Poirot is one of the most famous fiction detectives
of the 20th century, so famous he was given an obituary in
The New York Times upon his fictional death. Poirot
was featured in more than thirty books and numerous more short
stories over fifty years. The neat, dandy, and brilliant Belgian
who used his "little grey cells" to solve numerous
cases, has been played by numerous actors over the years,
but none more memorable than David Suchet. So with a story
like The A.B.C. Murders, there is the novel and
there is the
movie. A brief background (from Amazon):
"Apparently, a homicidal maniac is terrorizing
England as he taunts Poirot with advance notice of the time
and place of his next murder. Because the victims and towns
they live in occur in alphabetical order (Mrs. Ascher is
killed in Andover, Miss Barnard in Bexhill, Mr. Clarke in
Churston, etc.) and because the killer leaves an ABC Railway
Guide at each murder scene, the case becomes known as the
the ABC murders."
In both the print and televised versions, Christie's knack
for misleading the reader/viewer is apparent. Much like Poirot
must sort through what's said by characters through interviews
and such to find the truth, we must sort through what's written
by the author to find the truth. While this may seem misleading
or manipulative, it is what makes her novels - and the extremely
competent screen adaptations, aided no doubt by Suchet's masterful
portrayal of Poirot - so enjoyable. We think we know what's
going on, but ultimately we find out that we only knew what
Christie wanted us to know. Discovering the truth requires
clever thinking on our parts, paralleling Poirot's use of
his "little grey cells."
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