The Dead of Summer

If you can believe it, I had never read Agatha Christie until quite recently. I mean, she is the world's most translated author, the biggest-selling writer in the world, outdone only by Shakespeare and the Bible! More than a billion copies sold in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages!

I've never been a mystery novel fan, I never even read Nancy Drew as a kid. But I happened upon a nice set of three of Christie's best at a favorite discount bookstore back east and decided to try her out. I had enjoyed film versions of these stories and was interested to know if I'd like the novels.I ended up reading them all right in a row: Murder on the Orient Express, And Then There Were None, and The Body in the Library.  I was surprised to find how much I enjoyed them. In British old-school style, Agatha Christie's books are extremely well-written, literary, full of interesting believable characters, underlineable, and so clever they get me every time. I say she's good for keeping one's "little grey cells" on the move. Now she is my go-to for trips or leisure reading. Nice thin small paperback volumes perfect for slipping in purse, pocket, or pouch. If you are lucky you can spot one or two on a thrift store shelf. In fact, I now frequent thrift and used book stores for the sole purpose of unearthing an Agatha Christie.

I asked a lady who runs a local used book store in an old house on our main street if she had any Agatha Christie. I had looked in vain on the many floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with mystery paperbacks. She told me that yes, she sometimes has them, but they are snapped up immediately, and would I like to be on her waiting list? That's how good they still are. Classic detective fiction from a classy lady.

 Christie's main character series creations are Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and Tommy and Tuppence, the delightful sleuths in many of her stories, although some of her best whodunits stand alone.

So this July, in the dead of a very hot summer, I have filled my LFL with the best murder mysteries, Agatha Christie treasures I have been collecting for the past year, well-loved, dog-eared classics. Try one, you'll like it. Then watch a dramatization---you can find practically endless Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple on Netflix, both series and movies. They are excellent. I think even Agatha, who died in 1976 after a very interesting life and stupendously successful 50-year writing career, would approve.

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.  Agatha Christie