Agatha Christie: Plots, Clues and Misdirections

Agatha Christie: Plots, Clues and Misdirections
Author: Sally and Tony Hope
Publisher: Book Guild Publishing
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2023-09-28
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1916668496

Why do Agatha Christie’s novels continue to inspire each generation? The answer is the quality and range of her puzzles: her rich and varied structures of deception. Christie broke the mould of detective fiction and rewrote the implicit rules of the whodunnit. Agatha Christie: Plots, Clues and Misdirections examines Christie’s skills as a whodunnit writer. It analyses her methods in setting her puzzles. It shows how she uses a combination of diverse plots, cunning clues and subtle misdirections. In the sheer variety and profusion of each of these elements Christie is without peer, and her combining genuine puzzles with entertaining narratives has never been surpassed. In this unique analysis of how Christie sets her puzzles, two medical professionals and enthusiastic Christie fans explore the greatest of Christie’s deceptions – the impression that her writing is simple.

Agatha Christie: Plots, Clues and Misdirections

Agatha Christie: Plots, Clues and Misdirections
Author: Sally and Tony Hope
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023-09-28
Genre:
ISBN: 9781915853189

Why do Agatha Christie's novels continue to inspire each generation? The answer is the quality and range of her puzzles: her rich and varied structures of deception.

Sad Cypress

Sad Cypress
Author: Agatha Christie
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2009-03-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0061753459

In Agatha Christie’s classic murder mystery Sad Cypress, a woman damned by overwhelming evidence stands accused of murdering her romantic rival, and only Hercule Poirot stands between her and the gallows. Beautiful young Elinor Carlisle stood serenely in the dock, accused of the murder of Mary Gerrard, her rival in love. The evidence was damning: only Elinor had the motive, the opportunity, and the means to administer the fatal poison. Yet, inside the hostile courtroom, only one man still presumed Elinor was innocent until proven guilty. Hercule Poirot was all that stood between Elinor and the gallows.…

Beyond Greek

Beyond Greek
Author: Denis Feeney
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2016-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674496043

A History Today Best Book of the Year A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year Virgil, Ovid, Cicero, Horace, and other authors of ancient Rome are so firmly established in the Western canon today that the birth of Latin literature seems inevitable. Yet, Denis Feeney boldly argues, the beginnings of Latin literature were anything but inevitable. The cultural flourishing that in time produced the Aeneid, the Metamorphoses, and other Latin classics was one of the strangest events in history. “Feeney is to be congratulated on his willingness to put Roman literary history in a big comparative context...It is a powerful testimony to the importance of Denis Feeney’s work that the old chestnuts of classical literary history—how the Romans got themselves Hellenized, and whether those jack-booted thugs felt anxiously belated or smugly domineering in their appropriation of Greek culture for their own purposes—feel fresh and urgent again.” —Emily Wilson, Times Literary Supplement “[Feeney’s] bold theme and vigorous writing render Beyond Greek of interest to anyone intrigued by the history and literature of the classical world.” —The Economist

Rediscovering Natsume Sōseki

Rediscovering Natsume Sōseki
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2021-12-28
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 900421402X

First publication in English of Soseki’s travels through Manchuria on the then recently-acquired South Manchurian Railway. 6-week travelogue including boat from Osaka to Dairen, railway up the Liaodong Peninsular to Fushun. Many descriptions of Manchuria. It is a lively, informative and sometimes very funny narrative, which reveals Soseki's wit and Western-style humour in observing the human condition, as well as the literary techniques that characterize his subsequent achievements in shaping the modern Japanese novel. The Introduction by Inger Sigrun Brodey provides both a new perspective on Soseki the man and writer, as well as an insightful commentary on the SMR journey itself and the place of the travelogue in Soseki's writings. A selection of Sammy Tsumematsu's collection of previously unpublished photographs of Soseki is also included.

Eight Perfect Murders

Eight Perfect Murders
Author: Peter Swanson
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2020-03-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0062838210

New York Times bestseller “Swanson rips us from one startling plot twist to the next… A true tour de force.” —Lisa Gardner “[A] multilayered mystery that brims with duplicity, betrayal and revenge.” —USA Today From the hugely talented author of The Kind Worth Killing comes a chilling tale of psychological suspense and an homage to the thriller genre tailor-made for fans: the story of a bookseller who finds himself at the center of an FBI investigation because a very clever killer has started using his list of fiction’s most ingenious murders. Years ago, bookseller and mystery aficionado Malcolm Kershaw compiled a list of the genre’s most unsolvable murders, those that are almost impossible to crack—which he titled “Eight Perfect Murders”—chosen from among the best of the best including Agatha Christie’s A. B. C. Murders, Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, Ira Levin’s Deathtrap, A. A. Milne's The Red House Mystery, Anthony Berkeley Cox's Malice Aforethought, James M. Cain's Double Indemnity, John D. MacDonald's The Drowner, and Donna Tartt's The Secret History. But no one is more surprised than Mal, now the owner of the Old Devils Bookstore in Boston, when an FBI agent comes knocking on his door one snowy day in February. She’s looking for information about a series of unsolved murders that look eerily similar to the killings on Mal’s old list. And the FBI agent isn’t the only one interested in this bookseller who spends almost every night at home reading. The killer is out there, watching his every move—a diabolical threat who knows way too much about Mal’s personal history, especially the secrets he’s never told anyone, even his recently deceased wife. To protect himself, Mal begins looking into possible suspects . . . and sees a killer in everyone around him. But Mal doesn’t count on the investigation leaving a trail of death in its wake. Suddenly, a series of shocking twists leaves more victims dead—and the noose around Mal’s neck grows so tight he might never escape.

When Last I Died

When Last I Died
Author: Gladys Mitchell
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2009-10-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1409076806

A VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERY Rediscover Gladys Mitchell – one of the 'Big Three' female crime fiction writers alongside Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. When psychoanalyst and detective Mrs Bradley's grandson finds an old diary in her rented cottage it attracts the interest of this most unconventional of detectives, for the book's owner - now deceased - was once suspected of the murders of both her aunt and cousin. Does the missing diary finally reveal what happened to old aunt Flora? Is the case of Bella Foxley really closed? And what happened to the boys from the local reformatory who went missing at the same time? As events unfold, Mrs. Bradley faces one of her most difficult cases to date, one that will keep readers guessing until the very end... Opinionated, unconventional, unafraid... If you like Poirot and Miss Marple, you’ll love Mrs Bradley.

Agatha Christie's Complete Secret Notebooks: Stories and Secrets of Murder in the Making

Agatha Christie's Complete Secret Notebooks: Stories and Secrets of Murder in the Making
Author: John Curran
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020-03-19
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780008129637

Agatha Christie's Complete Secret Notebooks brings together for the first time Secret Notebooks and Murder in the Making, two volumes that explore the fascinating contents of her 73 notebooks. This includes illustrations, deleted extracts, unused ideas, two unpublished Poirot stories and a lost Miss Marple. When Agatha Christie died in 1976, aged 85, she had become the world's most popular author. With sales of more than two billion copies worldwide in more than 100 countries, she had achieved the impossible - more than one book every year since the 1920s, every one a bestseller. So prolific was Agatha Christie's output - 66 crime novels, 20 plays, 6 romance books under a pseudonym and over 150 short stories - it was often claimed that she had a photographic memory. Was this true? Or did she resort over those 55 years to more mundane methods of working out her ingenious crimes? Following the death of Agatha's daughter, Rosalind, at the end of 2004, a remarkable secret was revealed. Unearthed among her affairs at the family home of Greenway were Agatha Christie's private notebooks, 73 handwritten volumes of notes, lists and drafts outlining all her plans for her many books, plays and stories. Buried in this treasure trove, all in her unmistakable handwriting, are revelations and details that will fascinate anyone who has ever read or watched an Agatha Christie story. Christie archivist and expert John Curran leads the reader through the six decades of Agatha Christie's writing career, unearthing some remarkable clues to her success and a number of never-before-published excerpts and stories from her archives. This book features Agatha's original ending of her very first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, painstakingly transcribed from her notebooks. It also includes a number of short stories from the archives reproduced in full, including the unpublished The Man Who Knew, How I Created Hercule Poirot, and an early draft for a Miss Marple story, The Case of the Caretaker's Wife.