The Life and Literary Career of Agatha Christie

On a blustery and icy winter night on Christmas Eve, a snowdrift and a blizzard stops the Orient Express train in its tracks.  The train is filled to the maximum with passengers and crew, however, by the morning, one passenger, an American tycoon, is discovered deceased in his compartment having been slain and mutilated, with the door locked from the inside, and the killer still at large among the passenger body.  Detective Hercule Poirot must find the culprit and fast, or else the killer will strike again with a bloody vengeance.  In this story, the main and supporting characters experience isolation among their blizzardy surroundings along with a cold-blooded murderer on the loose, this intricacies of this story make this adaptation one of Agatha Christie's most famous and suspenseful novels.

This is a classic murder mystery novel that catapulted Agatha Christie to international stardom in the spring of 1926.  Roger Ackroyd was a man who was in love with a woman whom he knew too well, he knew all of her darkest secrets, such as how she poisoned her first husband and was now being blackmailed by an unknown entity.  Roger is dying to find the identity of the very person who is blackmailing his wife and so many others, he hopes his efforts will not be in vain as his wife has taken her own life as a result of the malicious slander that has been directed at her name.  This story comes with many twists and turns, as Roger is murdered himself, perhaps by the same person who was blackmailing his wife in the months beforehand.  Read on to find out everything that goes down in the plot of one of Agatha Christie's most infamous novels.

Anne Beddingfield is an adventurous young woman who arrives in the upskirts of London in search of wanderlust, however, an unexpected adventure comes to her when a strange man whom she has never seen before is pushed off of a ledge at an underground railway station and is electrocuted to death.  Anna observes a mysterious figure in a brown suit examining the corpse of the unidentified victim before running off into the night, and she is determined to find the true identity of the killer and bring him to justice.

The premise of this novel is about two young people down on their luck who are looking for some free-spirited adventure and seeking the prospects that come with entrepreneurship.  These two youngsters are looking to start their business empire with an ambitious plan set forth for them to conquer, however, when they start working for Mr. Whittingham, an enigmatic yet harrowing and sinister figure, the two budding entrepreneurs find themselves in a treacherous situation.

Agatha Christie spend much of 1924 to 1926 working on this novel following the massive success of her debut novel "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd."  An shadowy and enigmatic figure stood in the doorway of Hercule Poirot's bedroom doorway, and it is clear that this unidentified figure means him harm and malice.  The mysterious figure is revealed to be a gaunt and emaciated figure who stares Poirot in the eye for a couple of seconds and then collapses to the ground in a heap of dust.  Poirot struggles to comprehend what just happened and is determined to solve the mystery of the man's identity and the reasons why he was standing in his doorway.  He also seeks to uncover the mystery of the figure 4, scribbled endlessly on a sheet of paper, placing himself in risky scenarios to uncover the truth of it all.

Gerry Wade is quite a chronic over sleeper, he holds the record for sleeping in the longest, so the other house guests took advantage of this trait of his to play a practical joke on him, at least eight alarm clocks were set to wake him up from his slumber to go off one by one starting at 6:30 am.  However, one of the alarm clocks stayed silent and did not go off, and the prank eventually backfired with a disastrous outcome.  This was the first novel that Agatha Christie worked on and published since her divorce from her first husband,  Archibald Christie.

This is a classic and much-beloved tale of love, betrayal, jealousy, and yet another murder mystery.......the serenity and beauty present in the exotic setting on a cruise trekking along the Nile River are all but disrupted when the tragic murder occurs that shakes up all of the passengers and crew aboard, the victim is a beautiful young woman who seems to have had it all.  Hercule Piriot seeks to uncover a variety of tidbits and clues that a suspicious passenger may have left behind in the aftermath of the murder.  This novel has been adapted many times into theater adaptations, movies, made-for-TV movies, TV shows, etc.  There was even a recent film adaptation released in 2022 following the success of the 2017 adaptation of "Murder on the Orient Express."

Lord Comstock is a barbarous newspaper tycoon with enemies in high places. His murder in the study of his country house poses a dilemma for the Home Secretary. In the hours before his death, Lord Comstock’s visitors included the government Chief Whip, an Archbishop, and the Assistant Commissioner for Scotland Yard. Suspicion falls upon them all and threatens the impartiality of any police investigation. Abandoning protocol, the Home Secretary invites four famous detectives to solve the case: Mrs Adela Bradley, Sir John Saumarez, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Mr Roger Sheringham. All are different, all are plausible, all are on their own – and none of them can ask a policeman…