Agatha Christie's Detectives: Five Complete Novels is an omnibus edition of Agatha Christie works published by Avenel Books in 1982. The omnibus is available in hardcover only and comprises five novels: The Murder at the Vicarage, Dead Man's Folly, Sad Cypress, Towards Zero and N or M?.
This omnibus came in several versions with at least three different covers and several reprints. The earliest version was published by Avenel Books and distributed by Crown Publishing, by arrangement with Dodd Mead. Besides the jacketed version, there was also a non-jacketed library binding (ISBN 9780517379981). Some later versions have also been seen. A leather bound version without jacket was issued by Chatham River Press, another imprint of Crown Publishing circa 1985 (ISBN 9780517481509). A later hardboard version with a different jacket design ISBN 9780517035818 was issued by Avenel, this time distributed by "Outlet Books Company, a Random House company". As with other earlier Avenel omnibuses, this must have been issued after 1988 since Outlet Books, the same company as Crown Publishing, was only taken over by Random House in 1988. Presumably there would also have been, in later years, further impressions issued under the Wings Books imprint.
In 1995, G. P. Putnam's Sons published an omnibus with the same title and same content, although the novels were in a different sequence. This omnibus had a different ISBN 9780399140792 and a different Library of Congress catalogue number 95013164 and so should probably be considered a different book.
Blurb on front flap[]
AGATHA
CHRISTIE'S
DETECTIVES
Five Complete Novels
Are you unable to decide which Agatha Christie detective is your favorite? Is it Miss Marple, the sleuthing dynamo in spinster guise; Hercule Poirot, the elegant Belgian whose "little gray cells" are put to better use than almost anyone else's; Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard whose stolid English facade masks a brilliant mind; or Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, the endearing couple who are unbeatable when it comes to solving crimes? For all of us who can't pick just one, Agatha Christie's Detectives gives us five novels featuring four of her best-known detectives.
In The Murder at the Vicarage Miss Marple bends her sharp powers of detection to solving a nasty murder in the quiet village of St. Mary Mead. Seven people wanted Colonel Protheroe dead but who was desperate enough to shoot him in the vicar's study?
Dead Man's Folly places Hercule Poirot in a farce turned murder. Sir George Stubbs has kindly opened Nasse House for a village fête complete with a "murder hunt" game, clues supplied by a well-known mystery writer. When the girl guide playing the. corpse suddenly becomes the real item, Hercule Poirot is not amused.
Sad Cypress opens with a murder case that seems almost pointless to bring to court. Elinor Carlisle, jilted by her fiancé for Mary Gerrard, has an iron-clad case against her for Mary's murder. Yet one man believes in her innocence and hires Hercule Poirot to perform the impossible--prove Elinor not guilty of murder.
In Towards Zero Christie shows all the seemingly unrelated incidents that bring a murder to its zero hour. Superintendent Battle is baffled until a random error illuminates the crime and gives Battle and the reader an unsuspected murderer.
Tommy and Tuppence Beresford return in N or M? on a quest for fifth column informers in World War II England. Proving that the middle aged are just as sharp as the young, Tommy and Tuppence hunt down key Nazi informers with humor, excitement and style.
Agatha Christie's Detectives provides a delicious sampling of her detectives as well as her complex and compassionate understanding of human characters.
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