What is the best Agatha Christie book?

the Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Just as surprising as Murder On The Orient Express.

I recommend 'Endless Night'.

And Then There Was None...the perfect locked room mystery with a seemingly impossible resolution, very atmospheric and thrilling.

Endless Night was clever in how she used a narrative device to refurbish a plot she already used a dozen times. If you read enough of Christie, you see she basically has a couple setups she uses over and over again, with a few truly original ones like And Then, Roger Ackroyd, Orient Express, although the latter was too hokey to be satisfying imo.

I'd say 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd' too.

You can download The Mysterious Affair At Styles, which is the first Poirot, for free.

Not this one

Actually, r6, that's the same book as "And there Were None"; despite the horrific title, it is her best book. A close second for me would be "Five Little Pigs," which has a very unusual structure for her and is told in what is for her an atypical milieu (an enclave of artists like the Bloomsbury set).

Christie thought her best Poirot was "Peril at End House" and her best Miss Marple was "A Murder is Announced." I am puzzled by her choice for Poirot--I figured out who did it almost immediately when I read it after the first murder happened--but "A Murder is Announced" is indeed terrific and one of her very best. The murder plot is very complex, but then they usually are in her best mysteries.

Other personal favorites: "Murder of Roger Ackroyd," "Murder on the Orient Express" (another great locked room mystery), "What Mrs. McGillycuddy Saw," "Evil Under the Sun" (another fiendishly complex murder plot--and actually set on the British coast, rather than on a Mediterranean island as was changed for the movie).

I also had an affection too for the non-HC/JM ones.

Her Tommy and Tuppence ones were particularly good. Also the middle-east ones, like They Came to Baghdad and So Many Steps to Death.

What do people think of the movie "Agatha"?

Redgrave wasn't what I pictured Christie to be like.

r9 what year did it come out? r7 I thought the original title for Then There Was None, was Ten Little Indians?

My favorite is The Body In The Library. Perfectly paced, well drawn out characters, and a literary time capsule of English country life among the well-healed set in the 1940s. It was written during WW2 and studiously avoids any mention of war so as to be an escape for the readers. Love the exchanges between Jane Marple and her bff Dolly Bantry. The audiobook narrated by Stephanie Cole is excellent, as is the 1984 TV production with Joan Hickson as Jane Marple and Gwen Watford as Dolly Bantry.

I think her worst is generally accepted to be Passenger To Frankfurt. It's a friggin cold war mess with student uprisings and Aryan supermen. It's a paranoid outlook on the future of the Western World written by an old woman who lived through the 60s and did not approve of anything that decade had to offer.

I thought "Agatha" was a snooze.

The original title of "And Then There Were None" was "Ten Little N......" (Obviously, it was a different era when it was published.) It was then published as "Ten Little Indians".

I'd say any of the "name" books you can't go wrong with. Roger Ackroyd, Orient Express, Death on the Nile. While there are posters that have their favorites, and not-so-favorites, those are the most popular for a reason.

[quote]"Evil Under the Sun" (another fiendishly complex murder plot--and actually set on the British coast, rather than on a Mediterranean island as was changed for the movie).

"Evil Under the Sun" features DL fave Nicholas Clay:

This is as good a time as any to once again post Ron Goodwin's brilliant theme to the Miss Marple movies. This is my favorite iteration of it: in MURDER AHOY.

The Margaret Rutherford films have practically nothing to do with Miss Marple as Agatha Christie pointed out... but Christie also admitted that Margaret Rutherford is just so much fun that, even if she's nothing like Christie's Miss Marple, the films are vastly entertaining in their own right.

What? No MOUSETRAP fans?

Big fan of the MR as Marple movies, R14. Especially the opening themes.

Here's a link to a great Christie site, Delicious Death. One of the cool features is when you select a title, it gives you a brief synopsis of the book, as well as the various iterations of its cover art through the years. Growing up my mother had all the Christie books, so every summer I'd pick out a few to read. Brings back memories to see which version of book cover my mother had in her collection.

And Then There Were None/Ten Little Niggers/Ten Little Indians was made into a BBC miniseries a couple of years ago. Heavily influenced by recent Danish and Swedish crime dramas, and the music was sublime. It was rather brilliant. Highly recommend watching it if you can get it.

Another reference for OP: my mother also had the Christie "Bedside, Bathtub and Armchair Companion" which was a review of all her novels (no spoilers) and had some interesting features on Agatha, the films based on the books, etc. Fair warning, it was originally published late 70s/early 80s. But all her novels were published by then. I liked it as a kid because I'd read the synopsis of the various books to figure out which one I'd want to read next.

Looks like you could get copies pretty cheap on Amazon.

R17, the 2015 version of "And Then There Were None" is available on DVD. I recently bought it.

It has a good cast, including Charles Dance, Miranda Richardson, Sam Neill, Aidan Turner and Douglas Booth.

I really should put up the title sequence for And Then There Were None. The centrepiece (as shown in the sequence) was fascinatingly horrific in the show.

The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, which Agatha based on the tragic life of film star Gene Tierney.

I loved the 1945 version of And Then There Were None, with Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston and Judith Anderson. It didn't exactly follow the novel, but it was close for most of the film. It was suspenseful. Plus I'm an old movie buff.

You can watch it on You Tube.

There's also a 1965 version of "And Then There Were None" (but under the "Ten Little Indians" title) with hottie Hugh O'Brian and Goldfinger's Shirley Eaton.

Death comes as the end

I recommend:

-The Mysterious Affair at Styles -The Murder of Roger Ackroyd -Peril at End House -Lord Edgware Dies -Three Act Tragedy -The ABC Murders -Cards on the Table -And Then There Were None -Sad Cypress -One, Two, Buckle My Shoe -Evil Under the Sun -Five Little Pigs -Towards Zero -Death Comes as the End -Crooked House -The Pale Horse -Third Girl -Endless Night -By the Pricking of My Thumbs -Curtain

No need to read them in order.

I'm with most others here. Read The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd and follow it with And Then there were none.

A lot of Agatha Christies reading potential was spoilt for me as I watched all the BBC Joan Hickson Miss Marple's back in the 1980's. Absolutely brilliant, but of course gave the ends away.

Roger Ackroyd and And Then There Were none had never been spoilt for me with a film or TV version so I read them and thought they were genius.

The BBC filmed version of And Then There were None was very good I have to say.

The classic ones are The Murder of Roger Akroyd, The Murder on the Orient Express and An then there were none. Together with Crooked house and Hercule Poirot's Christmas they are all groundbreaking crime fiction novels (to different degrees, of course)

Personally , my favourite is Five Little Pigs, where she sucessfully combines plot and character. I also like Death on the Nile, After the Funeral and A Murder is Announced.

I like the ABC murder too.

The Pale Horse and Nemesis are my favorites.

There was a new version of 'Endless Night' a few years ago with hottie Tom Hughes:

I also like The Hollow (aka Murder After Hours).

The Poirots tend to age better than the Marples (with the exception of A Murder is Announced).

THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD or PERIL AT END HOUSE.

I have a soft spot for Marple, though, and for fun A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED, SLEEPING MURDER and A POCKETFUL OF RYE are my favorites.

Crooked House.

Roger Ackroyd was sublime. Its shocking reveal and gaping open-mouthed public response to it was the forerunner for the film, The Sixth Sense’s utterly surprise ending. And yes, anyone who says that they figured out either before the end is lying.

Crooked House was, supposedly, Christie’s favorite. The reveal is kind of dark, by her standards.

Death Comes As The End, set in Ancient Egypt, is one I like a lot.

It was pretty obvious in the case of Ackroyd R34.

"Mrs. McGinty's Dead" is the best of the Poirot to me. but I think "Parker Pyne Investigates," a series of stories, is the best introduction to Agatha Christie.

Some of her collections of short stories are quite good as well.

Roger Akroyd, except for the big thing at the end, is very standard, with generally not very interesting motive, plot or characters (though the doctor's sister is very good and said to be the inspiration for Miss Marple). It is clear her focus was...well, elsewhere. But it is a classic.

We just finished NEMESES, about a Lesbo murderer

I remember this cover always scared me when I was a kid. She was reading it one summer on our vacation to Cape Cod.

I always used to see which books were written before my mother was born, and tell her what was older, her or the book. She must have loved that.

"She" being my mom. My post was confusing...

Another cover that freaked me out. Sorry, just reminiscing here...

Bump.

I didn't realiz e there was a movie being made of "Crooked House" coming out in December. never read that one....

The Moving Finger

Death Comes As The End

Miss Marple - at Bertrams Hotel

Murder at the Vicarage

Evil Under the Sun

The Mirror Crack'd

I loved Crooked House. Read it so long ago that I don't remember the murderer, so I'm excited for the film.

And Then There Were None is the absolute standout. I've read it multiple times, starting as a young teenager. It's pretty damn perfect, and haunting. The films are all fun and different too, and that recent BBC miniseries was superb.

Endless Night is great too. Roger Ackroyd is special, but I did figure it out, but I won't say how or why because I'm not a Spoiler Bitch.

Other favorites are Evil Under The Sun and At Bertram's Hotel.

Passenger to Frankfurt is awful. As are almost all her last ones: Curtain, Postern of Fate, Sleeping Murder. (And some of them were written long before they were published.

Agatha Christie's list of her own favorites of her works (in a letter written in 1972):

[quote]"My own ten would certainly vary from time to time because every now and then I re-read an early book for some particular reason, to answer a question that has been asked me perhaps, and then I alter my opinion – sometimes thinking it is much better than I thought it was – or not so good as I had thought."

And Then There Were None - A difficult technique which was a challenge and so I enjoyed it, and I think dealt with it satisfactorily.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - A general favourite.

A Murder is Announced - I thought all the characters interesting to write about and felt I knew them quite well by the time the book was finished.

Murder on the Orient Express - again because it was a new idea for a plot.

The Thirteen Problems - a good series of stories.

Towards Zero - I found it interesting to work on the idea of people from different places coming towards a murder, instead of starting with the murder and working from that.

Endless Night - my own favourite at present.

Crooked House - I found a study of a certain family interesting to explore.

Ordeal By Innocence - An idea I had had for some time before starting to work on it.

The Moving Finger - Which I have re-read late and enjoyed reading it again, very much.

Murder at the Gallop. I love the Margaret Rutherford movie of this book.

Sleeping Murder is my favorite, but I think partially because it was the first one I read as a kid and kicked off my Agatha Christie reading (I was moving on from the Three Investigators and the Hardy Boys).

I also seem remember liking Murder at the Vicarage, Murder in Mesopotamia,By the Pricking of My Thumbs, and What Mrs. McGuilicady Saw. I also like d Nor M, but suspect as an adult it might not be as good of a read. PBS just did a series of Tommy and Tuppence, but I think the casting was off for the leads.

The one book I did not like as a kid was Postern of Fate. I remember thinking Passenger of Frankfurt was a little off, but Postern of Fate was the one I had a hard time actually finishing. You could tell she was less in tune with the modern world and her best books were probably pre-1950. Sleeping Murder and Curtain were the last published, but she wrote them years before to be the last Porioit and Marple books published.

I had not read her in years, and recently picked a couple up at a garage sale. Curtain - which was pretty good, but Poriot bugs me at times and his friend is just a little too dense. Nemesis, which I thought was one of the weaker ones. The world she grew up and and knew how to write about (basically pre WWII fading empire Britain) did not mesh well with more contemporary settings.

While not as big of a Poriot fan, Death on the Nile is probably one of the better ones. Then There were None is also one of her classics, but might suffer from being done so many times, not just in movies of the books, but as a plot from dozens of TV shows from the 60's, 70's, and 80's - from Remington Steele to Wild Wild West.

I have not read Murder on the Orient Express, largely because I saw the original movie and know he ending, but I think that is considered one of her classics as well.

Sleeping Murder is my favorite, but objectively speaking, Death on the Nile and Then There were None were probably better books.

Postern of Fate, Nemesis, and probably Passenger to Frankfurt would be the ones I would not recommend.

.

R27,

Upon your recommendation, I ordered and read FIVE LITTLE PIGS.

Thanks for the rec! Really enjoyed the book. And it's a different style from most of her work.

Curtain

I'll be listening to one on CD from the library, but I don't think I can stand a fake Belgian accent for nine hours so I'm a little hesitant to get a Hercule Poirrot mystery...