Agatha Christie books

Agatha Christie is not just a famous mystery writer, she’s the best English novelist of all time. She wrote from the 1920s through the 1970s. Christie writes very simple, straightforward prose with a focus on plot and dialogue. They are not procedurals exactly, since they rarely focus on a professional police officer or detective. (Even Hercule Poirot is a former detective.) Instead the clues are compiled from conversations and plot twists. I has compiled some basic information about her writing, the best Agatha Christie books, which ones to dip your toe in with, and what to read (and in what order) when you want to dive deeper. Her best books to read are the most popular ones with the most lasting cultural impact. They’re full of ingenious plots and endings so memorable that they’ve become part of the literary art.
1- MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
This book has an exotic, quintessential setting on a luxury train. Poirot is traveling back to London and encounters a passenger who believes his life is in danger and tries to hire Poirot to protect him, but Poirot refuses. Sure enough, the man turns up dead and Poirot has to figure out which of the passengers in the first class car is responsible.
2- CROOKED HOUSE
A standalone mystery that lets you dive in deeply to one strange family. Patriarch Aristide Leonides is dead, his much younger wife the prime suspect, but this family abounds with secrets and resentments, including a 13-year-old girl who fancies herself a detective. This is a family full of strong characters. As a reader you get to know them all really well. Suspicion is on pretty much everyone, and it’s got a thrill of an ending.
3- PERIL AT END HOUSE
This book has a young woman who’s had three murder attempts in just a day or two, a superstitious maid, foreigners in the guest house, and hard-partying friends hovering nearby. A particularly impressive denouement where Poirot uses some unusual theatrics. Hastings narrates, which is always a bonus.
4- AND THEN THERE WERE NONE
This book is known for its story where characters on an island are picked off one by one.
5- THE A. B. C. MURDERS
This book breaks with Christie’s usual style with a string of murders with seemingly random victims. Basically every serial killer novel where a detective tries to figure out how the victims are connected exists because this book did it first.
6- ENDLESS NIGHT
One of Christie’s personal favorites, this is a book that breaks most of her rules, with a memorable narrator, a cursed estate, and a love story that doesn’t go the way you think it’s going to go.
7- DEATH ON THE NILE
This novel, which also had a popular film adaptation in the ’70s, takes place on a luxury cruise in Egypt where an heiress who is too beautiful, too rich, and too perfect finds herself a target of the other scheming passengers.
8- FIVE LITTLE PIGS
This one takes a Rashomon-style approach, with Poirot investigating a cold case and all five suspects writing up their own version of events. With a limited cast of characters and a very clear chain of events, this is one of her simplest and most rewarding plots.
9- THE MOVING FINGER
This novel, where the plot revolves around a town in scandal over poison pen letters, has a batch of quirky and memorable characters, including an extra charming injured pilot narrator.
10- THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD
The third Poirot novel, it’s a masterful use of narration and sleight of hand.
If you start out with Christie and realize you really enjoy her books, reading in order of publication is just about as rewarding a reading experience as you can get.