Three Mile Smile

Rolling Ohio hills, three acres of land where we could raise dogs, cats, and ponies. Sounds ideal doesn’t it?

Except Fernald Feed Materials Production Center, which was operated by the DoE,  hid among the small towns nearby. The plant had been running since 1951 or so, but few people in Cincinnati knew where it was or what it did. The site produced uranium and thorium at the site.

So we moved in around 1967, we had no idea of the problems with our “neighbor.” The plant was far from safe in its processes. Uranium dust spread after being released into the atmosphere. But that wasn’t enough. Other chemicals were released or allowed to soak into the ground. The Great Miami Aquifer, a site that could store over one trillion gallons of water, was found to be tainted by Fernald.

In 1984, a whistleblower shared that extent of the releases, which totaled into the millions of dollars. Interestingly, a single worker, speculated to be the whistleblower, was killed at the site; no arrests were ever made. Silkwood premiered around the same time, making the incident all the more suspect.

The site was added to the superfund, the money set aside to take care of these nuclear messes. After $4.4 billion dollars and 31 million pounds of uranium, the site was declared clean.

Not a surprise, but many of the residents passed away from cancer and other diseases associated with uranium exposure. Those who lived near the site, including yours truly, were given a monitoring program, where we received frequent tests and scans to ensure that we had not been contaminated by the chemicals. It was discontinued a few years ago although they held a seminar recently on the results of their testing – as if my neighbors could be put into a barchart.

So when Michael Bracken invited me to participate in Janie’s Got a Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Aerosmith, “Three Mile Smile” seemed to be fitting story. While I’ve written several autobiographical stories featuring a crime-solving me lately**, this one felt like it should be told from another’s point of view, but with the same concerns about nuclear processing in local communities.

I hope you enjoy it.

 

** The next story in that series, “Boogie Shoes” will appear in the March/April 2025 issue of AHMM.

The Knife Slipped

Back in 2010, I spent part of the summer at the University of Texas – Austin. I was researching a biography of Erle Stanley Gardner courtesy of a fellowship from the estate which was administered by the school.

I had 635 boxes of material to review and take notes on to have a complete picture of the author. Gardner never did anything by halves, so it was not surprising that his life had been boxed up and donated to the Harry Ransom Center.

During those days of work, I had a box delivered to me, which had not been cataloged. The correspondence was actually inside a paper grocery bag. As I pulled the papers out, I realized that I had a wealth of new information. Most of the correspondence was between Gardner and his long-time editor Thayer Hobson of Morrow.

Some of it was fascinating for reasons that won’t be discussed in this blog entry, but one item that caught my eye was a mention of The Knife Slipped, a Cool/Lam book that had never been published. From all indications, The Knife Slipped should have been the second book in the series written in 1938/1939, during what I consider to be Gardner’s most productive and creative period.

At first, I tried to cross-reference some items to see if the book had been renamed or repurposed as a later book, but I could find no records of that. I checked with the librarians who assured me that a book with such a name was in the library materials. There were a number of half-started novels and short stories, but this appeared to be a complete extant book.

Two reasons stood out as to why Hobson did not wish to publish the book. First, he wanted more character development for the two main characters, Cool and Lam. I was a bit surprised. Plot and situations were Gardner’s forte. Perry Mason was rarely described, had no interior monologues, and very little backstory. From a standpoint of 70+ years later, this was a moot point for readers. They’d met the duo in 29 other published cases.

The other reason was content related. Hobson found the storyline to be too risqué for the audiences. Gardner was not afraid to include curse words in his works – or in his everyday life either. Again that would not prove a problem for current audience. Even the most salacious story of 1939 would be considered tame by today’s audiences.

Over my time writing about Gardner, I came to appreciate the Cool/Lam novels more than Perry Mason. That might be sacrilege, but they represent a more hardboiled, pulp-oriented story. Gardner had plenty of experience with those, writing 625+ shorter works for the pulps. Cool and Lam were the worthy successors to Ed Jenkins and Ken Corning. Gardner could be himself more in these books, and his infectious personality and wit come through in these books.

I tucked the information away as I made my way through the rest of the boxes. In late 2014, I spoke with Charles Ardai about the book. Hard Case Crime had done a wonderful reprint of Top of the Heap a decade earlier. He was interested in the book, so I put him in touch with the estate to work out the details of printing a full copy of the book for review.

Tomorrow, December 6, 2016 will be the release day of The Knife Slipped, the first new Erle Stanley Gardner novel since 1970. I’m thrilled to have been a small part of this project. I would likely include this title in my top 10 of the Cool/Lam cases, and perhaps even in the top 5. 

Early influences

By now, I know most of you have heard me tell the story of my father bringing home a copy of The Underdog and Other Stories by Agatha Christie, and thinking I might enjoy it.

However, in becoming a biographer, there were other influences that occurred around the same time. The first of these was brought back to mind by the EQMM conference I spoke at on Friday. Since I am writing about the men who wrote the Ellery Queen stories, I was there primarily as a biographer. During the discussion of the magazine covers, I recalled a series of covers from the 1970s, featuring a number of famous mystery authors. Those photos intrigued me. Who were these people? Why had they written?

I've put a few covers here to prove my point, and for the record, they were published in 1979, my final year of HS when I was reading every mystery book I could get my hands on. So these among the others were fascinating to me. I looked for biographies of many of these authors, but in the 1970s, the biographical and critical studies of the genre and its practitioners was not very far along.

 The other influence was the fact that a man from my church, Charles Norton, wrote a book about Melville Davisson Post (who you need to read if you have not yet.) I was so pleased that someone had answered questions I had about the authors of my favorite genre. Not just the Crime Queens or the best sellers, but a fascinating man who is not remembered today.

I can't find my copy; it has been 40 years or more since I read it. However, it did interest me in forgotten American mystery authors, and now I write of them as well.

I don't go to that church these days, and I believe that Mr. Norton has passed away, but I did come away with an avocation and a joy in reading mystery related biographies.

EQMM

Back in 2005, I watched the EQ Centenary Symposium from the comfort of my home. For those of you who know me, I've always loved Ellery Queen's works. From the time I was a teen, I've read and reread them. In fact, when I had my neck surgery in 2011, I used the time off to reread the series from start to finish.

In 2016, there will be another anniversary Symposium at Columbia University in New York City. It's part of a larger exhibit regarding Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine that will run at the Butler  Library until the end of the year.

This year, the symposium is being held at the end of September, and I'll be speaking.with Charles Ardai, and Sarah Weinman (how is that for a dream team?) on the subject of Making Mystery Matter. It's from 2-3pm at the Butler.

I am beyond thrilled to be a part of this. I don't think it's a surprise to anyone that I'm currently writing a biography of the two cousins who wrote as Ellery Queen, but I am excited to actually be talking about the mounds of research I've been accumulating for the past few years.

Of course, New York friends, I want to see you! We'll try to make plans.

The Devil's in the details

Beyond the regional flavor of the books, Taylor reflected the era in her details. The books set before the war deal with the hardships of the Great Depression. From 1941 to 1945, the reader gets a glimpse into the world of ration coupons that went on across the country, blackouts, people missing while serving at war. Taylor’s fictional world is such a mirror of the times that the reader can play historian and archaeologist as well as sleuth. This level of accuracy is leveraged well in the books. The reader is so entrenched in the minutiae of the book that it becomes easier to accept the more preposterous events that take place over the course of the novel. Were the book not so well grounded in real details, the reader might not be willing to move along with the plot.

These day-to-day particulars came easy to her as an author. Taylor was keenly aware of her own powers of observation. In a letter to her cousin, Taylor once wrote, “I tell myself I don’t see enough, but the photographic memory works in spite of myself and I notice as much as I do at home – the trick of observation is largely lost, I think, in childhood; I leaned to cover up long ago, but notice too much always, and it’s helpful traveling, but if an occasional social curse at home.” 

I expect that a century from now people will still read Taylor’s books and understand the hardships of the greatest generation. 

Beginning with Less of a Bash

Beginning with a Bash really didn’t. The first book written in the series featuring Leonidas Witherall really didn’t begin the series. The first book was published in Mystery League, the short lived (only 4 issues) magazine edited by the two men writing as Ellery Queen, appearing in 1933.

In it, Witherall is working as a janitor in a bookstore, a far cry from his later work as a schoolmaster and writer of the Lieutenant Hazeltine thrillers under a pen name (as Alice Tilton was a pen name for Phoebe Atwood Taylor.) However, the familiar lightning speed action, amiable crooks and high-spirited yet society minded women all appear in this first book.

Once the book appeared in Mystery League, the hilarious tale could find no publisher in the United States. The book was published in the UK by Collins Crime Club. It did not appear until the Norton reprinted series in 1972.

So while the book does not appear on the copyright renewal registry in the United States, it really has no reason to be since it was not copyrighted until 1972, meaning that it remains under copyright until 2051. Regardless, St. Swithin opted to create an eBook version of the title and sells it despite the copyright issues.

It’s no surprise that Taylor’s works are as confusing as their plotlines. 

World's Fair

While she was already writing two series, Bennett Cerf of Random House approached Taylor in 1938. He wanted a mystery novel that would take place at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. However, he wanted the book to be published prior to the fair for the sake of advance publicity. Taylor agreed to write Murder at the New York World’s Fair, under a second pen name of Freeman Dana, another concoction from her family history. She toured the fair site in Flushing Meadows, New York, in April of 1938 and then set to work. Taylor had to use her active imagination, because the fair site was nothing more than muddy fields when she began to write the book. She surrounded herself with publicity materials, architectural renderings of the buildings and a map of the fair site. In 31 days, she had finished a first draft of the novel.

The book differs from her other two series. Taylor was known for her eye for detail and attention for the small things that brought reality to the surreal plots. Since she was unable to see the site, she could not accomplish that in this book. The names of the various parts of the fair are given, but little detail is provided on how each one looked.

Additionally, the build-up to get the main characters to the fair and to dump a dead body in their lap takes up a considerable portion of the book. The real investigation only begins with the second half of the book. There’s no emotional impact in the discovery of the victims, who are unpleasant people, but certainly worth a paragraph of regret.

The book suffered a number of editorial revisions, something that Taylor was not used to. She chafed a bit under the direction, and the correspondence between author and editor was less than pleasant. The book was published in November 1938 with a first printing of just 900 copies. Taylor considered the book so insignificant that she didn’t even bother to list it in her credentials. The book is available now as an eBook, for those interested in reading more from Taylor.

Five Favorite Wolfes

In listing out my favorites Nero Wolfe’s, I found a few themes that occurred in more than one book: strong, unique women. politics and Orrie. Who knew?

5. Plot it Yourself – someone is accusing playwrights and novelists of plagiarism by having copies of books typed before the best-selling books are published. How is the criminal doing this? Stout has such obvious fun with the subject matter that it’s contagious. The plagiarists start ending up dead after Wolfe gets involved and he has to solve the case. 

4. The Silent Speaker – Cheney Boone of the BPR is bludgeoned to death right before an industrial association’s meeting. Of course the association is accused of murder (indirectly) assuming that one of its members committed the actual deed. Upon calling one of his famous meetings of all involved, Phoebe Gunther doesn’t show, and Phoebe turns out to put Archie through his paces. Of course, being a match for our intrepid bachelor is a death sentence and Gunther becomes the next victim. Of all the Wolfe victims, I think I’m sorriest to see her go. She was such a good balance for Archie.

3. Death of a Doxy – Orrie’s in trouble and Wolfe has to bail him out. He’s been seeing a “doxy,” a Scrabble-player’s delight that means “mistress” as well as a supposed fiancée. Of course, the doxy had another man paying her bills. Wolfe and Goodwin have to determine who was paying the bills and likely killed her for stepping out on him. Julie Jaquette makes this book with her attitude and mannerisms.

2. In the Best Families – the last of the Zeck books and by far my favorite. I always like Wolfe encountering an environment outside of his own, and this book has that in spades. Wolfe has “disappeared” after being hounded by Zeck. Archie takes a case, which Wolfe solves quickly and efficiently after the Zeck mess is completed.

1. The Doorbell Rang – without a doubt my favorite of the series. The book has all the things I love about this series: witty banter, a worthy opponent, politics and a mention of books of interest. Wolfe goes up against the FBI and J. Edgar after he takes a case for a woman being pestered by FBI surveillance. A rather prescient look at tactics used throughout the 1960s against “enemies.”

I can't read 55

There has to be some consolation for being 55, or at least I told myself that.

To treat myself, I broke out the one Nero Wolfe I’d never read, The Final Deduction and read it for my birthday.

When I was young, I read voraciously. I would pick up 10-15 books a week to read, and my favorite genre was (of course) mystery. I’d nearly polished off all of the Wolfes, when I realized that there was one that I hadn’t read. I debated finishing the series off, but something held me back, and like a fine wine, I decided to let it sit for a while before I read it.

Forty years after that, I decided it was time. I have to say that it wasn’t the best in the series (I’ll post my top 5 Wolfes in a week or two), but it was a great one to hold back. It’s one of the few cases that involves a kidnapping, and Wolfe makes some fascinating deductions up front that help the reader going forward.

Of course, there has to be at least one or two words that I have to look up and “subdolous” was the word here. My spellcheck doesn’t even recognize it, that’s how unfamiliar it is to the modern reader.

Without giving away the plot too much, Stout used a certain device that let me know who the murderer was before the final showdown with the killer. I think it would have been a stronger plot without that particular ploy, which immediately telegraphed the killer to me. However, it was a pleasure to read, and made the sting of aging a little less this year.

I’ll have to come up with a new to me series for 60, since I’ve finished off most of the series that could probably be recommended to me. 

Tuesday Night Bloggers

Tuesday Night Bloggers

By now most of you are aware that I blog on the same topic as a number of Golden Age Detection aficionados. It started with Agatha Christie's birthday for the month of September, and it's kept going since then. 

They've set the schedule for next year, and I'll be participating in several months of blogging with them. 


They are:

January: Rex Stout

February: Dorothy L. Sayers

March: John Dickson Carr

April: Phoebe Atwood Taylor

May: Erle Stanley Gardner

June: Mary Roberts Rinehart

July: Arthur Upfield

August: Patricia Wentworth

September: S. S. Van Dine

I'll be starting next week with Rex Stout. Hope to see you then. 

Favorite Five EQ Novels

Sorry I have been remiss in participating in the Tuesday Night bloggers, but after writing about respiratory illnesses, I came down with bronchitis and pleurisy.

So I am getting into the swing of things with the Ellery Queen blogging on its last week. I thought I'd do a top five list. I'll give reasons for each as I go along.

5) Cat of Many Tails -- one of the first serial killer novels, this is a work of art in terms of its rendition of a city in terror. Ellery is well-drawn and compassionate in this novel. His father is the typical over-worked police officer. The plot is simple and yet not seen by most readers. Definitely a

to-be-read of the Queen canon.

4) Calamity Town -- I'm incredibly fond of the Wrightsville novels. In part, I like them because Ellery does not succeed in the typical great detective fashion. While he may tell a small cadre of people what really happened, the news is not made public, so he doesn't gain the accolades that he does in other novels. This makes him more humble and human. In this case, the plot revolves around the typical calendar holidays and is tied together beautifully. I can't talk more about the plot without giving things away, but it's a wonderful combination of plot and style.

3) The Tragedy of Y -- I have a great love of books with malevolent matriarchs. Appointment with Death always ranks up there with my favorite Christies as well. I think this is in part because I grew up with a schizophrenic grandparent. It made me want to read about other, similar families. So this case has always fascinated me, and it pleased me to read that it was one of Fred's favorites as well. The family is a large one and members of the tribe start dying one by one. Who is the culprit? I lost out on a copy of this book, signed and in dj (because the seller backed out on me. I still hold a grudge on that one.)

4) The Tragedy of X -- I love a pure puzzle book for me and the first time I read this I was positively awed by the puzzle plot. It's held up well in reread. I still remember that feeling the first time I read this and enjoy it each time I come back to this.

And of course, my number one....

1) The Greek Coffin Mystery -- the book has 4 solutions and the table of contents spells out of the title and author. It's a well planned, well plotted mystery. It's the first glimpse of Ellery failing and Ellery wondering about his own abilities, things that will be probed more in later cases.


Could Have Been a Contender....
1) The Siamese Twin Mystery -- another early favorite of mine with a dying clue and all.

2) The Black Dog Mystery -- one of two books that stimulated my interest in Scottish terriers. I know it's not a true Dannay/Lee EQ novel, but I didn't know that at the time.

The Case of the Flu

Sorry, feeling a bit under the weather myself today, so the topic will be illness in the Christie canon, specifically flu.

The story goes that young Agatha ran out of books when she was home with the flu, and her mother indicated that if she'd completed all the books in the house that she'd best write her own. Of course, it's no small matter that one of her early links to the world of writing came from the flu.

(Sidenote: I've read this story many times about mystery authors. Of course, Boucher was sickly and read voraciously. Margaret Millar was in bed at the time she decided to write, since she could do better than the authors she was reading. Fred Dannay was in bed with an ear abscess when he discovered the world of Sherlock Holmes. Not that I'm in the same stratosphere, but I have to wonder if my own ill health and reading didn't go hand in hand as well.)

So after that impetus from disease, it's not surprising that the flu crops up in a few stories. The first is "The Case of the Caretaker," where Doctor Haydock brings Miss Marple a puzzle to contemplate. She'd been ill and not back to her usual self yet. The solution of the puzzle helps her spirits and her health.

Then of course is "Yellow Iris," the precursor for Sparkling Cyanide. In both stories the victim is originally suspected of bumping herself off. "Yellow Iris" is a Hercule Poirot short story in which Iris dies of cyanide. The death is suspected to be suicide (though no reason is given.)

In Sparkling Cyanide, it is Rosemary who "commits suicide" as a result of post-flu depression, and Iris who is the younger daughter. While it sounds like a flimsy excuse, apparently the idea has been around for over 130 years, which means the diagnosis was available at the time of the book. Of course, later it's proved that Rosemary did not commit suicide (given that this is Christie, I don't think that's a particular spoiler.)

Curran has very little to say about this book, so we can't fill in many of the details here, but it would be interesting to know if the idea of post-flu depression came from a friend who suffered from it or just her knowledge of medicine.

Again Miss Marple has been under the weather in A Caribbean Mystery, which finds her on an island recuperating. It's quite possible that she has had the flu.


Have I missed other examples of illness (specifically flu) in the Christie books?

Walk like an Egyptian

Fans typically know that Agatha Christie’s second marriage was to Sir Max Mallowan, who was a renowned archaeologist in his own right. He traveled to various Middle Eastern digs, and often Christie went with him.

Though not the spot of any digs, Christie spent a fair amount of time in Egypt, which seems to be the setting for at least five (by my count) works.

• ·         Death Comes as the End
• ·         Death on the Nile
• ·         Parker Pyne – “Death on the Nile”
• ·         Poirot Investigates  - “The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb”
• ·         Akhnaton

Christie was only 20 when she visited Egypt for the first time. Her mother had become ill while Christie was at boarding school. Like many English folk of that age, they decided to stay for three months in the warm climes of Egypt. Christie visited a number of sites, but did not show a passion for archaeology.

 Some of the sites have changed dramatically. The Aswan dam has changed the landscape. The temple of Philae is now reached by a different method than in Christie’s time. The Old Cataract Hotel, where the Ustinov version was filmed, now has a suite named for Christie.

So it really should be no surprise that a young bright young thing (this author) would want to visit the land of the Pharaohs as well. I climbed the side of one of the pyramids at Giza (though it’s frowned upon, but if it was good enough for Simon then it was good enough for me!)

Of course, I chose a Nile river cruise that mimicked the one in Death on the Nile.  I traveled by train to Luxor, the home of the Karnak Temple where some of the scenes take place. The train was an overnight trip, and I slept through most of it.

We arrived in Luxor, where we boarded the ship and then went for a tour. The temple is amazing with columns that stand far taller than any man. It would be easy to imagine some damage coming to a poor little rich girl there. However, I must say that no one died on our tour.

We traveled up the Nile from there to Edfu, which I don’t recall from the books, but our stop was at 4am, so I’ll have to be forgiven for not remembering to look.

The trip was a delight, but given the current situation in Egypt, I’m very glad that I went in 1989. 

Collecting Christie

So on my 55th birthday, it seems appropriate to talk about a lifelong passion which has been to collect Agatha Christie firsts. As with many things in my life, I literally stumbled into it, but that's fine with me. The fun has definitely been in the journey.

As I've shared many times before, my love of all things Christie began with The Underdog and Other Stories, a short story collection that my dad gave me from a yard sale. Given his ways, I'm betting that he likely paid a nickel or dime for it. He gave it to me and suggested that I might like it. He was right (to say the least.)

I had yet to start reading mysteries, and that led me to begin devouring as many of the books as I could. The nearest bookstore was a place called The Little Professor, a mall bookstore with a limited number of Agatha Christie paperbacks. Since I read many of them multiple times, I soon realized that it was cheaper in the long-run to buy hardcovers. My editions of Elephants Can Remember and Passenger to Frankfort came in (special order) with the words "first edition" inside. I had to ask what those were, but the woman at the store explained to me what it meant and why those were more valuable.

It wasn't long before I was collecting in earnest. My favorite dealer was Bill Dunn. For those of you who knew him, Bill ran a mail-order business out of CT. He sent these thick catalogs out every month and I waited anxiously to see what he had and what I could afford.

I don't know where I found Bill. It may have been in the ads from one of the mystery magazines like TAD or The Mystery FANcier. I don't recall, but his catalogs became the highlight of the month for me.

Around the time of my high school graduation, which occurred slightly more than 35 years ago, Bill advertised a first edition of Styles from Lane for $100. Being flush from my graduation gifts, I bought the copy. It was the only one I ever saw advertised (until Abebooks came around.)

My oddest edition is a copy of Styles with the dj and binding for Curtain that was published around the time that Christie passed away. I also have a NZ first of The Moving Finger, which a dealer would not allow me to return (though the book was misidentified.)

I finished my collection by the time I was 30, though I've had to update things from time to time. There was a collector from AK who helped me when I learned that a few of my 1950s editions were actually book club editions (the only difference was the booklist in the front of the book). That was quickly corrected.

Currently, I'm trying to round out my collection by replacing some first with those having a dust jacket. The newest volume that does not have a jacket is Ordeal By Innocence, so if you're in the mood to get me a birthday or Christie for Christmas -- you know what to look for.

Baby up the Chimney

In talking about similar themes and characters in the Christie canon, one incident stands out from the rest. In no less than three novels, The Pale Horse, By the Pricking of My Thumb, and Sleeping Murder, she has an elderly woman in a nursing home asking about the child behind the fireplace.

While it may seem as if the books were similar due to the timing, it must be remembered that Sleeping Murder predates its release by some 30 years. Therefore, Christie was writing about this particular incident over the course of some three decades.

The incongruence of the incident occurs in The Pale Horse and Sleeping Murder, where the incident does not have anything to do with the conversations at hand. The incident occurs while the protagonists in the book wait for someone else. The incident is thrown into the action in these later books as a jarring note. This marks a change from Christie’s earlier works where she makes every word count – every word driving home to the denouement.

It’s only in By the Pricking of My Thumbs that Christie investigates what that crime entails. Tommy and Tuppence clear up the mystery of the child. In reviewing John Curran’s Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making, he shows that Christie took notes on the “your poor child” behind the fireplace, but he too cannot come up with a satisfactory explanation for its appearance in three novels.

He must be Belgian!

It’s no surprise that I love dogs, and therefore it should be less surprise that I opted to write about dogs in the Christie novels for my first blog entry. Our Scottish terrier is named Tuppence for obvious reasons.

Christie was a dog enthusiast as well. Her preferred breed was the Sealyham, which is a very rare breed today, though not so much in Christie’s time. She included no less than 17 dogs in her books, which I won’t list here, but I did want to look at two in particular.

The first is Hannibal, the Manchester terrier from the Postern of Fate. Hannibal has a large role in the book (which is dedicated to Christie’s dog Peter.) His behavior is explained through “thoughts” that the dog is imbued with by the author. Hannibal is the character who first discovers Alexander’s tombstone and later Hannibal is the only one who saw the attack on Tuppence. He comes to the rescue at the end of the book by identifying the shooter.

In that book, Christie does mention James, a Sealyham of obstinate nature – as if terriers came in any other way.

In Dumb Witness, the dog, Bob, is given an even larger role. Bob is a wire-haired fox terrier in the book, though the Suchet version of the novel has a dog of a different appearance. In that version, Poirot states, "This dog is very clever. He must be Belgian!" John Curran tells us that it was based on a short story entitled “The Incident of the Dog’s Ball.”

Bob, in this story, plays a pivotal role in the execution of the murder and the solution to it. Bob is blamed for leaving a ball at the top of the stairs which causes Mrs. Arundell to trip. However, she realizes it for an attempted murder and contacts Poirot, who arrives too late to help. Mrs. Arundell realized that Bob was outside all night and could not have been the culprit who left the ball at the top of the stairs as a red herring.

Sealyhams are again mentioned in Mrs. McGinty’s Dead; fox terriers appear again in the short stories “Death By Drowning” and “Next to a Dog.” 

But Mom, everyone's doing it....

Okay, so there seem to be a lot of lists around picking the best of the Christie novels on the occassion of her 125th birthday.

I had to join in. I've been reading Dame Agatha since I was a teenager, and my father brought home a copy of The Underdog and Other Stories, saying "I think you might like this." Truer words were never spoken.

I've read all of them and at various times, I've reread them as well. I've collected them for nearly 40 years, and currently have American 1st editions of all of the novels and short story collections. It took me a long time to do it, but the collection is looking great. I'm going back at this point and adding copies with dust jackets when I can afford it, but they're all there.

So without further ado, my top 10 list.

1) Death on the Nile -- I enjoyed this book so much that I actually took the same cruise as Poirot and company. I'm glad I did that before 30, since I don't know that I'd go back in the current climate, but it was an adventure. The book is fascinating, and perhaps her best Poirot novel.

2-5) The Big Four -- no not that book, but the four that made her reputation. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, And Then There Were None, Murder on the Orient Express and Curtain. For their own reasons, they were daring and showed Christie's versatility as an author.

6) A Murder Is Announced -- the best of the Miss Marples by far. A stunning plot, and an intimate look at post WWII life in a village. For all of those who say Christie is only plot, I always point them to this book. Plus the murder of a LGBT character was probably the most heartbreaking scene I've ever read in a Christie.

7) The Hollow -- another Poirot that stays with me. The portrait of Henrietta as artist and human is probably quite like what Christie felt about herself -- cannibalizing everything.

8) The ABC Murders -- another first, one of the first serial murder books and one that is still mentioned today. I've read other titles that refer to the ABC Murder type.

9) Why Didn't They Ask Evans? -- they didn't mean Curtis. I love what Christie does with plot here. The care with which she must have planned this book to achieve what she did here makes me stand back and gawk. Plus I've always adored her Bright Young Things, and Lady Frankie and Bobby are among the best.

10) The Underdog and Other Stories -- tucked in my collection of first editions is the book that my dad gave me 40 years ago. I may be a bit sentimental about this title, but it opened the world of mystery to me and that is worth a spot on my list.