The A.b.c. Murders

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Mystery / Christie, Agatha	4-week checkout	Due 05-23-2024
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Mystery / Classic / Christie, Agatha	4-week checkout	Due 04-19-2024

Recognized as one of Christie's cleverest mysteries in the highly popular Poirot series. It is sure to be a success with her many avid fans. A serial killer is on the loose, murdering his victims in alphabetical order, leaving an ABC Railway Guide beside each body ... and also playing a game with Hercule Poirot, alerting him in advance to the location of the murders, but Poirot always arrives too late. Intrigued by the psychopath's mind and methodology, Poirot travels the length and breadth of England - determined to track down the ruthless killer.

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D is for... submitted by camelsamba on August 12, 2018, 10:46pm In this story, the murderer is playing with and taunting Hercule Poirot while going around the country systematically murdering people: Alice Ascher in Andover. Betty Barnard at Bexhill-on-Sea. Carmichael Clarke in Churston. What is going to happen in Doncaster? Can Poirot work it out in time to stop the murderer?

Near the beginning, Hastings asks Poirot to describe his ideal murder, and it turns out to be the plot of another book (although the other story is not quite as 'simple' and unimpassioned as his musing). Now you'll have to read all the Poirot books so you can find it!

How do you hide a tree? submitted by terpsichore17 on July 28, 2021, 11:25am Read after one episode of the BBC show, which probably biased me in a certain direction (namely, chasing that big red herring in confusion the entire time). Had I not been biased in this particular way, I might have noticed how other suspects were essentially cleared of suspicion by this herring, and puzzled out how it's The Sign of the Broken Sword redux.

(But perhaps I wouldn’t have – I am notoriously bad at keeping myself neutral and extremely susceptible to red herrings in mysteries.)

As it was, I wondered how we could spend so much time staring straight at a murderer with so little clue as to why he does what he does. I’d be mad at how quickly it’s all tied up, except that there really is fair play with all the clues as placed in the text. This one should be rewarding to reread (and I expect I’ll enjoy seeing how the show does/doesn’t track with it; certainly the book doesn't bother throwing Poirot's past into question).

Also amusing: how Christie basically puts an ad for Cards on the Table, which would be published later in 1936, in chapter 3.

A Baffling Crime Deed Explained, Finally; Great Hook! submitted by Meginator on July 25, 2022, 10:39pm This is a top-tier Hercule Poirot adventure, largely because Christie goes outside of the typical formula and presents a sprawling story instead of a more typical domestic (or otherwise fairly limited) drama. Here, the culprit is a serial killer who murders in alphabetical order while leaving an identifying calling card at each of their stops, and Christie plays a bit with the narrative structure by presenting both Hastings’s own view of the story and an alternate perspective that immediately ramps up the tension. More of a cat-and-mouse scenario than most of Poirot’s adventures, the book reads almost like a thriller, with an ingenious solution that proves that Christie is firmly in control of the plot at all times (something readers looking to solve the mystery themselves will do particularly well to remember with this novel). This is the type of book that cements Christie’s reputation as one of the finest mystery authors of all time.

One of her Best submitted by kathscot on July 11, 2023, 11:41am Christie more often changes point of view from Hastings in this novel giving it a greater depth and interest. Highly recommended.