Hi there! I'm writing my masters thesis about the female offenders in the detectives of Agatha Christie that were written during the interwar period. My research question goes as follows: female offenders in the works of Agatha Christie : was she influenced by the prevalent criminological theories of that time (when it comes to the female offenders in her detectives). the criminological theories that were popular back then were mostly from Lombroso and Freud. If any of you would like to give me some sources or information about this topic, please feel free to share! I'd be super grateful :) thanks in advance and have a good day!
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Hello—what is the name of the song to which the characters are dancing in the opening scene? Thanks!
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I've just finished listening to The Adventure of the Clapham Cook and I'm trying to figure out who is reading it. It's not the version available on Audible (or similar). At first I thought it was George Cole, but now I'm not convinced. There is nothing mentioned in the page about Hercule Poirot. It sounds old, perhaps recorded in the 70s or 80s, but I'm just guessing.
Was the "t" in Hercule Poirot really silent? In "Death in the Clouds," an English maid announces a visiting Poirot as "Mr. Air Kule Prott." She is not reading from his business card but is simply trying to replicate what she heard as he introduced himself. A continuity error on Ms. Christie's part wouldn't even account for it (a continuity error as in, she forgot that she had Poirot providing his name orally rather than presenting a card), because the maid pronounces his first name in such a way as to indicate that she heard it rather than read it ("Air Kule").
Is this just an error on Christie's part? Or have we all been saying it wrong all of this time? Surely there is at least one audio recording of Christie saying his name.
Hello everyone!
I'm sure most of you have noticed the little site notice appearing on the wiki about the MediaWiki 1.39 update. I just wanted to give a little bit more information about it.
What's being updated? Mostly coding underneath the hood. There will be no major design changes. Consider it like replacing the battery of a car - the car will still be the same outwardly, but it just needs some updates underneath.
All Fandom wikis will be updating to MediaWiki 1.39 in the coming month. I don't have an exact timeline at this moment, but expect it to happen in mid-March or April. During the migration to 1.39, the wikis will be set in read-only mode. It shouldn't take more than 30 minutes (major wikis could need more hours). One week before migration, a banner will appear on communities to let you know the migration is scheduled. For one week after the migration, a similar banner to let users know the community is now on the new version.
Most importantly, if you experience any bugs after the move, please either report them to the admins (who will then forward them to me) or directly to me either on my message wall or Discord. We've done our best to squash and take note of any bugs in our testing phase, but any additional pokes would be greatly appreciated!
Please check out the help page on Community Central for a changelog and further information. ^^
Agatha Christie's legacy is enormous and the role she played in the forming of today’s mystery fiction is undeniable whilst she is fairly called “The Queen Of Murder Mystery”. Even though the internet is filled with fun facts about her, most people still don’t know that the majority of her novels, especially the ones including poisoning, are scientifically accurate. Her ability to build complex narratives around poison was due to the time she spent as a nurse during World War One. She was a qualified apothecary’s assistant and worked among drugs and dispensaries for many decades. Now that we’ve established the accuracy of her works, let’s ask ourselves a very intriguing question. Was her work really timeless? How much do the murder solving tactics adopted by today’s investigators differ from those used by Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple? In this article you will find an interview with an officer of the homicide department and a comparison of two very similar cases, a modern one solved by experts and a fictional one solved by Agatha Christie’s heroes.
Her famous Belgian big moustached detective is not one to base his job on technology. Instead, it is through method and order, conversation and keen observation, that Poirot is able to solve many criminal cases. The detective devotes the majority of his time and energy to psychological profiling, filling in the blank spaces of the puzzle of evidence and communicating with suspects and people who are overall involved in the case. He also carefully analyses every piece of evidence, so he can spot the gaps. In addition to that Poirot has superior oral skills at eliciting information. He is able to obtain the information he seeks by tailoring his tone and messages to the person he is speaking to. He goes into conversation knowing what he is searching for, which makes him extremely effective. More than any other element, Hercule Poirot relies on his “little grey cells” to solve crimes. Actually one of the most famous facts about Poirot is his constant references to them. For instance, in the “A,B,C murders” he tells Hastings “If the grey cells are not exercised, they grow the rust”. As for Miss Marple, the elderly villager of Saint Mary Mint, her methods resemble those of Poirot. Her success is granted mostly due to her extinguishing observation skills, intuition and perhaps her ability to blend in and be easily trusted.
After my interview with Mr Lefteris Karatziovalis, a former expert of the greek homicide department who was kind enough to distribute some of his time to my research, I came to the conclusion that both Agatha Christie’s heroes and police experts generally follow the same procedure.To begin with, when arriving at a crime scene their first priority is to protect it, so any possible clues such as fingerprints or even the placement of each object isn’t altered. On multiple occasions we saw Poirot shouting at people to not touch a single thing or Chief Inspector Japp trying to keep everyone away from the scene. After that they would inspect the room, where everything is, if there’s something broken and of course the body. The homicide department works closely with a forensics pathologist who helps them determine the time of death, the way the victim was killed or even the weapon that was used, just like the ones in Agatha Christie’s novels. When the murder weapon is a gun, they can identify the model by its cartridges and determine the angle of the gun when it fired the fatal shot, by the size and shapeof the wound. There were many novels starring Hercule Poirot where the whole story just didn’t click to him because the cartridge he found didn’t match the supposed murder weapon or because he later found a second bullet in a more discreet place. The experts use two types of equipment, one to secure their own safety and the murder scene and another one to collect clues. The second one consists of cameras to capture the scene, different powders to reveal any fingerprints and tools to collect any biological substances to get it DNA tested. In the work of Agatha Christie we see people using this equipment, but Poirot is not the one doing so, it’s Japp men who are commanded to do so. Psychology plays a bigger role in the expert’s work than one might expect. They actually have to make a psychological profile not only for the victim, but also for each suspect and the murderer, based on the way he killed his victim. In addition to that, they search for possible motives and try to match any testimonies they have with the psychological profiles they have already created and the nature of the crime. Poirot and Miss Marple did the same thing. If they were dealing with a strangulation, the bruising was intense, and there was someone with a good motive and perhaps a violent character, they would instantly become the main suspect.
For a more meaningful comparison of each other’s methods, we will talk about the solving of “Caroline’s murder”, a case that left the whole Greece speechless, and the 2001 film production of the famous “Evil under the sun” by Agatha Christie. Both include a woman being strangled, a plot twist and a man involved. The lover of Arlena Stuart was the one who supposedly found her lying dead and Caroline’s husband was the one who supposedly witnessed her murder. They both confused the experts by giving false testimonies and pretending to be crushed by their partner’s death. The police always suspected Mr Babis Anagnostopoulos, Caroline’s husband, but never had enough evidence against him. He had made the whole house look as if there had been a robbery and he had been tightened up. The police talked with the neighbours and anyone who might have seen something. In addition to that, they looked through all the video evidence and tried to find fingerprints or any kind of DNA, but strangely enough they couldn’t find a single thing, as if the scene had been clinically cleaned. What actually helped the police figure everything out was the phone and smartwatch of Mr Anagnostopoulos. The data they collected from them didn’t correspond to his testimony and revealed not only the fact that there wasn’t a robbery and he was the one responsible for her death, but also how he did it and when. In the case of Arlena Stuart's murder, Poirot approached the matter in a different way. He tried looking for motives and alibis. However things got complicated, as Poirot had found different pieces of the puzzle, but was missing the crucial one that could bring them all together. He made his big breakthrough, when he discovered what were the brown remains of the little glass bottle that was thrown through the window. Once he figured out it was tanning lotion everything made sense. Emily Breqwster’s testimony were she said the Arlena’s skin seemed too pale underneath her tan, the room attendant's testimony who said she had heard running water and the whole confusion with the time everything happened.
Taking all the above into consideration we come to the conclusion that when it comes to murder, the methods used by officers today don’t differ from those used by our favourite Agatha Christie heroes. However we must also acknowledge the contribution of technology and especially that of the digital footprint of the suspects, as well as the victims, which has helped experts solve very difficult cases in the last decade.
Can't believe "I am Rufus" in his Edit of 17 December of "The Case of the Discontented Husband" where he has put the words "golf" and "tennis" in blue lettering in the Summary! ?
IAN W R
I’m new here but I love agatha! Here’s my September profile picture!
It may not be that popular but this is my favorite one actually, What Agatha did was so sneakyyyy. The way the culprit's motive was being shown unnoticably was splendid aAAA
(Spoilers Ahead)
I was completely engrossed in suspecting the family members that I didn't even consider gilchrist as a person of interest. After finishing watching it, I've learned to suspect people that have been "targeted" but survived (which proved useful) I was such an idiot back then hajshsk.
Btw I only watched the one with David Suchet's portrayal so I don't know if things were different in the book.
I just started reading And Then There Were None in English class, and it's pretty good. (No spoilers please)
Whos exited for the new Poirot film to come out?
Hi Andy.
Doubt if you remember me but I did a few Agatha Christie Short Story collections around January 2020. I was mainly interested in Doing the summaries that were missing from the FANDOM pages.
You were really helpful in teaching me to get the summaries uploaded.
Since then you have been editing the details of the pages and I have recently been reviewing these pages as the notifications come through to me. I have noticed some slight errors in one or two of my Plot Summaries and would like to make the necessary changes to improve the pages concerned.
However the website has been upgraded and I don't think I have any editing permissions any more. Can you please help me get back into the pages to correct my own input?
I've read And Then There Were None and A Murder on the Orient Express. Both endings were spectacularly genius!
Can be novels or short stories.
One request: Please don't read the comments to see what others have said before you answer. I want to know your favorites off the top of your head, before you get any reminders.
When they talk about the idea of "the least likely person did it", why is such a person the least likely?
(Really, who determines these likelihoods? Isn't the idea of quantifying such a thing entirely subjective?)
What I've come to realize is that the characters designated as "least likely" are often considered "least likely" because they are present not as individuals, but as functionaries. They're involved in the story -- seemingly -- not due to their personal lives, but due to their work.
I'm revisiting one novel where the culprit turns out to be the relatable-young-protag's boss, who seemed to have no personal connection to anything in the story. Honestly, I find this one a bit thin.
There are a few others where the reader gets to know, and, presumably/hopefully, love some family of characters in which there has been a murder, to the point where the reader doesn't want any of them to be guilty. When it turns out that the murderer is the doctor, or the maid, the reader is supposed to feel comforted that it's not one of the people they liked... not one of us. I personally hate those sorts of endings.
The "They meant to murder me!" is a different type of least-likely person, but I feel like once you've read one with that twist (raise your hand if one is in your top five Christie books), you start to suspect that person as soon as you hear that.
I'm just... sort of, exploring what makes some mystery stories feel more satisfying than others. Entirely subjective, but then again there are certain titles that repeatedly turn up in a lot of people's top-5 or top-10.
I just discovered this wiki, and ... so, I've been just, thinking, about certain tropes/patterns that recur in Christie's novels.
Some of these, I've made lists and compared the various ways she's used them in different novels (can you tell I grew up on TVTropes? lol), some I haven't gotten to yet.
A few are:
The Narrator/Assistant did it -- the first use is the famous one, but there are a lot more. There are at least 2 other Poirot books and at least 1 neither-Poirot-nor-Marple book that fit this quite well. In the (I think?) later assistant-did-it Poirot book, I do really like the way Poirot handles it.
I have.... thoughts about the later 1st-person-narrator-did-it book. But. Anyway.
"They meant to murder me!" -- Suuuuure. I'll leave it at that.
Sleeping Murder -- Sleeping Murder, and one other in the '40's, and 3 in the '70's, including Postern of Fate. I can't help but get the sense that her attitude towards the concept changed in the intervening decades.
I also made a list of books where a new victim was killed, presumably because they knew about an older crime.