My Best Twelve
from Poirot or Marple? An Agatha Christie Reading Room
I was asked once, at a retirement luncheon, to name my favorite
Christie, and I said I couldn't possibly, and then I talked for twenty
minutes. This is the written version, cut down to twelve, in no order but
the order they came out. One line apiece and not a single ending. If you
see anything on this page that spoils a book, write and tell me and I'll
take it down the same day.
Titles in brackets are the American titles, where they
differ, since you may find either one on the shelf.
1. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) · Poirot
Read it before anybody tells you one single thing about it, including me.
The book that made her name, and people have been arguing about it for
seventy years.
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2. Murder on the Orient Express (1934) · Poirot [Murder in the Calais Coach]
A train stopped by a snowdrift, a dead man in his compartment, and a
coachful of passengers who all have somewhere to be. Even if you've seen the
film, the book is better.
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3. The ABC Murders (1936) · Poirot
A killer working through the alphabet, writing letters to Poirot before
each one. My first, and still the one I hand to fourteen-year-olds.
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4. Death on the Nile (1937) · Poirot
A honeymoon, a riverboat, and a great many people who'd rather the bride
weren't aboard. She had been to Egypt, and you can smell the river.
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5. And Then There Were None (1939) · no detective
Ten strangers invited to an island, and no way off. The most perfectly
built thing she ever wrote, and probably the most frightening. Read it
in daylight.
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6. The Body in the Library (1942) · Miss Marple
A dead stranger in an evening dress on the hearthrug of a perfectly
respectable house. The oldest opening in the detective story, done
properly at last.
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7. Five Little Pigs (1942) · Poirot [Murder in Retrospect]
A murder sixteen years old, and five people who remember it five different
ways. I think it is the best-written book she ever produced, and it is
the one I reread when I want to remember why I love her.
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8. The Moving Finger (1942) · Miss Marple
Poison-pen letters in a quiet country town. Miss Marple hardly turns up
until near the end, and then she takes the whole book home in her
knitting bag.
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9. Crooked House (1949) · no detective
A large, rich, unhappy family all living under one roof. She counted it
among her own favorites, and so do I. It has the most startling solution
of the twelve, and that's all I'm going to say.
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10. A Murder Is Announced (1950) · Miss Marple
A notice in the village paper announces that a murder will take place on
Friday evening, and everyone turns up to watch. Miss Marple at her very
best, and a whole village of people you'll recognize from your own.
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11. At Bertram's Hotel (1965) · Miss Marple
Miss Marple takes a holiday at an old London hotel where nothing has
changed since before the first war. Rather too perfectly unchanged, as
she begins to notice.
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12. Endless Night (1967) · no detective
Written in her seventies, about a restless young man who wants more than
he has, and darker than anything she'd done in years. It will surprise anyone who thinks of her
as a writer of cozy puzzles.
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On the reserve shelf, which is to say the ones that nearly made
it: Peril at End House (1932), Cards on the Table (1936),
Evil Under the Sun (1941), The Pale Horse (1961), and
Sleeping Murder (1976), which I'd save for last, as she did.
The tally: five for Poirot, four for Miss Marple, three for
nobody at all. You can see why the great question is still open in this
house.
The Reading Room | Where Should I Start?
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Last updated August 29, 1999
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