Book Preview A-SITTING ON A TELL (With apologies to Lewis Carroll) I’ll tell you everything I can If you will listen well: I met an erudite young man A-sitting on a Tell. “Who are you, sir?” to him I said, “For what is it you look?” His answer trickled through my head Like bloodstains in … Read more
Book Preview Agatha Christie: An Introduction JOHN CURRAN Who is known as the Queen of Crime, the Mistress of Mystery, the Duchess of Death? Who is the world’s most translated writer? Who is the biggest-selling writer in the world, with only Shakespeare and the Bible selling more copies? Who wrote the longest-running stage play—almost sixty … Read more
Book Preview Prologue SUMMER TERM I It was the opening day of the summer term at Meadowbank school. The late afternoon sun shone down on the broad gravel sweep in front of the house. The front door was flung hospitably wide, and just within it, admirably suited to its Georgian proportions, stood Miss Vansittart, every … Read more
Book Preview Foreword There is an idea prevalent that a detective story is rather like a big race—a number of starters—likely horses and jockeys. “You pays your money and you takes your choice!” The favourite is by common consent the opposite of a favourite on the race course. In other words he is likely to … Read more
Book Preview Mr. and Mrs. Beresford were sitting at the breakfast table. They were an ordinary couple. Hundreds of elderly couples just like them were having breakfast all over England at that particular moment. It was an ordinary sort of day too, the kind of day that you get five days out of seven. It … Read more
Book Preview Foreword It was almost certainly because of her dissatisfaction with Alibi, someone else’s stage adaption in 1928 of her novel, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, that my grandmother Agatha Christie decided to write a play of her own, which is something she had not previously attempted. Black Coffee, featuring her favourite detective, Hercule … Read more
Book Preview Chapter One In the heart of the West End, there are many quiet pockets, unknown to almost all but taxi drivers who traverse them with expert knowledge, and arrive triumphantly thereby at Park Lane, Berkeley Square or South Audley Street. If you turn off on an unpretentious street from the Park, and turn … Read more
Book Preview Chapter 1 ‘You do see, don’t you, that she’s got to be killed?’ The question floated out into the still night air, seemed to hang there a moment and then drift away down into the darkness towards the Dead Sea. Hercule Poirot paused a minute with his hand on the window catch. Frowning, … Read more
Book Preview Author’s Note I had written this book because it was so difficult to do that the idea had fascinated me. Ten people had to die without it becoming ridiculous or the murderer being obvious. I wrote the book after a tremendous amount of planning, and I was pleased with what I had made … Read more
Book Preview PREFACE Agatha Christie began to write this book in April 1950; she finished it some fifteen years later when she was 75 years old. Any book written over so long a period must contain certain repetitions and inconsistencies and these have been tidied up. Nothing of importance has been omitted, however: substantially, this … Read more
Book Preview One I Old Lanscombe moved totteringly from room to room, pulling up the blinds. Now and then he peered with screwed-up rheumy eyes through the windows. Soon they would be coming back from the funeral. He shuffled along a little faster. There were so many windows. Enderby Hall was a vast Victorian house … Read more
Book Preview Joan Scudamore screwed up her eyes as she peered across the dimness of the rest house dining-room. She was slightly short-sighted. Surely that’s – no it isn’t – I believe it is. Blanche Haggard. Extraordinary – right out in the wilds – to come across an old school friend whom she hadn’t seen … Read more
Book Preview Chapter One It was Miss Somers’s turn to make the tea. Miss Somers was the newest and the most inefficient of the typists. She was no longer young and had a mild worried face like a sheep. The kettle was not quite boiling when Miss Somers poured the water onto the tea, but … Read more
Book Preview One A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED I Between 7:30 and 8:30 every morning except Sundays, Johnnie Butt made the round of the village of Chipping Cleghorn on his bicycle, whistling vociferously through his teeth, and alighting at each house or cottage to shove through the letterbox such morning papers as had been ordered by … Read more
Book Preview One MAJOR PALGRAVE TELLS A STORY “Take all this business about Kenya,” said Major Palgrave. “Lots of chaps gabbing away who know nothing about the place! Now I spent fourteen years of my life there. Some of the best years of my life, too—” Old Miss Marple inclined her head. It was a … Read more
Book Preview One Mrs. McGillicuddy panted along the platform in the wake of the porter carrying her suitcase. Mrs. McGillicuddy was short and stout, the porter was tall and free-striding. In addition, Mrs. McGillicuddy was burdened with a large quantity of parcels; the result of a day’s Christmas shopping. The race was, therefore, an uneven … Read more