It’s February, the winter is bone-chilling and I have holed up against it. I have baked the predictable and ventured into the experimental (black bean brownies, thankyouverymuch), and I have begun checking out Agatha Christie books again to stave off winter blues. And I know, I know, I’m the girl whose business is to titillate, but I love the macabre and I was born on Halloween so in the month of lust and roses, I’m going to talk about . . . murder. Obviously.
(This is when you skip to the bottom to find all the tour dates and subscribe to my JustFor.Fans for all the fun adult content and call it a day. Yes, my bush is on there, and it’s mouth watering. And yes, this is the awkward commercial break where I advertise my body hair Very Seriously. Go look at it.)
Confession: I bypassed Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew mysteries and went straight from Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes to Agatha Christie. Maybe it was about living in former British colonies, or maybe Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew relied heavily on luck and bored me. When you’ve been racing through a detective who broods a lot and can tell you about the make of a cigar just by sniffing its ash, well, you get the picture.
I wish I could tell you that I read the genre to keep my mind sharp (do puzzles and stave off alzheimer's and dementia, says science), but of course I don’t, none of us do. We tell stories and read fiction to make sense of the world around us and reading Christie is no different. Dearth is alien and irresistible, but above all ordinary. When a murder comes along we have on our hands something unordinary, though grotesque, and Christie gives us a chance to explore it amidst all the trimmings of power, illusion, and psychology. She makes her settings unassuming and benign, but we find ourselves facing material fears of losing money, status, and the presumed power and sense of false righteousness that comes with it.
Though her murders remain almost clinical, her characters remain wistful. Her two most famous detectives, Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple, have an almost philosophical ongoing commentary on human nature. Poirot happily match-makes, Marple remains melancholy even as she gleefully describes all the murders she has investigated. Both remain wary (though almost expectant) of the next war, and know that a sense of order should never be taken for granted. Both are philosophies I find myself easily sympathetic to.
But I think it is Christie's humor and the way she wrestles her character I find myself most relating to: “We are friends and partners,” she writes when describing the creation Hercule Poirot. “I must admit that I am considerably beholden to him financially. Poirot considers that I could not get along without himbuton the other hand, I consider that but for me Hercule Poirot would not exist. [And so] There are times when I, too, have been tempted to commit murder. In moments of irritation I point out that by a few strokes of the pen (or taps on the typewriter) - I could destroy him utterly. He replies grandiloquently ‘Impossible to get rid of Hercule Poirot like that - he is much too clever!’ [. . .] And so, as usual, the little man has the last word!”
Enjoy my content but can’t meet up? My favorite charities are Project Safe, SWOP Behind Bars, and Sakhi. If you're feeling extra cheesy, feel free to send me a cash gift, a book, or some art.
Want my writings directly in your inbox? Sign up!