Відео

After your mention of this last week, I watched episode one and it is indeed charming! I plan to watch them all. Thanks for bringing it to our attention!

I have a white duck webkinz plush I got around the time these episodes were being translated that I named Oliver: I think I even gave it a red ribbon? Whenever I think about someone being stoic after death, I always think about the Tape-Measure Murder episode, and also the sentiment of what Miss Marple said it could look like. I recently rewatched the Strange Will episode, as I had misremembered it an adaption of The Missing Will. Hope someday we get a good adaption of that, the Poirot episode was vastly different. Perhaps the most different to source material Suchet adaption? Glad to see a video about this underappreciated series!

I'd never heard of this before. Thank you.

oh I remember that one, i found it by accident and sat down one weekend after Finals and binged it. Loved it and then lost the link and kinda forgot the exact title and couldn't find it when i looked for it a couple years later. now i know my next weekend plans.

This video is shit, you left out the Season 2 CSI episode of the same name.

Prediction for next week... Lucy is #1.

Thanks so much for spotlighting this series! Since you announced it last week I binged the whole series, and… just wow. Any fan of the Poirot and Marple series will enjoy these even if they (like myself) have little exposure to anime. Such a gem!

I really like The Secret of Chimneys for the breezy fun. I really also The Man in the Brown Suit

And surely the contrast between gleaming white teeth and black skin is what an elderly English lady in the 60s would notice and comment on - from both Miss Marple’s and Agatha’s point of view? Not necessarily racist.

The Major’s glass-eye as a strategy of deception is surely worthy of some praise - as it is very striking - even tho it is guessable?

Indeed - Sarah Ph fundamentally misunderstands AC. They chose her as ‘they’ meant - misguidedly - to add an ‘edge’ to AC - they imagined that’s what modern audiences wanted - and she was thought to fit the bill. And what a dreadful woman -listen to Phelps pontificating!

Surely the Suchet Cards on the Table is as bad if not worse than Appointment?

I think I only actually read this book once, but I think I'm moving it up the reread list based on this video. I do like the Hickson adaptation, especially the part about Lucky killing Greg's first wife, because, unlike apparently in the book, she comes off rather well, or at least very convincing that it actually was a mercy killing.

Thanks for the list and I'm glad you didn't leave Archie Goodwin out! I really enjoyed his depiction in the 2001 TV series.

My copy of this novel is the one with that hideous cover you've put on the right. Quite possibly valuable to collectors? But in my opinion they are welcome to it.

Found out something interesting regarding a certain adaptation of this novel: The 1983 TV movie was at least co-written by Sue Grafton, of "A is for Alibi" etc etc. fame. I know you focus on the "Golden Age of Mystery" as you call it, but I would be curious about your thoughts on that series. I always thought it was a shame that she died before she could publish the final book. I have a lot of suggestions but I hate being a pest. LOL. I'd like to see a list of your favorite TV mystery shows, "Murder, She Wrote", "Perry Mason", "Matlock".... you get the idea. I know that's a lot to digest at once and I apologize. Hope you'll at least consider these possible videos.

Looking forward to the anime review. I was unaware of it and (confound you!) now I’m hooked!

I never really try to solve the mystery. I like to be surprised at the end. If I do guess, I’m probably not going to like the book. Thanks for all your great content! ❤

Ngiao Marsh has been a favorite of mine for decades. I enjoyed this one a lot. Nigel is an endearing character. ❤

I've always been a bit wary of this series, because I'd heard that it takes so many liberties with the stories. But now I'll definitely give it a shot, thank you! :)

I agree with your ranking. This is a great analysis.

I really love this one!

One of my favorites!

My parallel for Evelyn Hillingdon is Philippa Haymes. Lucky comes off all right in Ms Hickson's adaptation, at least in her police interview.

This is a favorite of mine. I love Miss Marple traveling, and encounters a stuffed frog-hahaha Just really interesting characters.

I love the comparison between Jackson and Archie Goodwin. I have been meaning to ask you if you have any plans to cover Rex Stout.

I really love this book. It's not Christie's best by any means, but there is just something really relaxing about the Caribbean setting (a perfect vacation read) and interesting about the whole mystery plot. Christie does a great job of hiding the identity of the killer while also making the solution solvable, and the characters are dynamic and interesting to read about (in my opinion). I bought this book (along with The Pale Horse, an unappreciated novel), and I have no regrets about doing so.

My personal favourite miss Marple novel, I love it so much, Tim kendle is one of thee reasons because I like how he's written, he's intentionally written to be sloppy even tho he has killed before which I like since it does show us that even serial killers (was he a serial killer?) are not thee smartest and he's just evil, hes like nurse Hopkins from sad cypress but much better he stop at nothing to achieve what he wants and that's what I love about him even if he's stupid

I actually find Stephen Norton to be the scariest of them all, he is the one I don´t want to think about before going to sleep. 😅 Thank you for this great sumnary. 🙌

For the longest time, I avoided "Curtain". I just didn't want to know how it all ended for Poirot. Then i watched the Suchet adaptation. I'll say one thing: They never have to do another one. The way Poirot looks directly at the camera as it fades to black..... unforgettable, at least it is to me.

Please, please, please review The Mysterious Mr Quin at some point. He is my absolute favourite character as well as one of hers Keep the videos coming!

I like the film adaptation of ENDLESS NIGHT. I thought it was better than the Marple one. I would love a new adaptation, maybe a three episode series.

I liked the clue that wasn't there. In Death on the Nile, the nail polish bottle that didn't have an odor.

Pretty much totally convinced me with your ranking. I LIKE the 50s books more than the 20s, but I agree that the "importance" of the latter is much greater and the short stories really are terrific.

Nice list. I'm glad you mentioned Edmund Crispin. I enjoy the Gervase Fen stories and a few lines in them made me laugh out loud. I notice that there weren't any Maigret stories listed. Are you not a fan?

Okay. You blew it with The Mysterious Affair at Style. First, the letter wasn't from Evelyn to Alfred. It was from Alfred to Evelyn. He didn't keep the letter for months. He had just written the letter the day after Mrs. Inglethorpe forgot to take her usual dose of medicine. So he wrote it on the day Mrs. Inglethorpe died. As for why he didn't destroy it, the text tells us... “But now a fresh dilemma arises: he dare not keep that piece of paper on him. He may be seen leaving the room-he may be searched. If the paper is found on him, it is certain doom. Probably, at this minute, too, he hears the sounds below of Mr. Wells and John leaving the boudoir. He must act quickly. Where can he hide this terrible slip of paper? The contents of the waste-paper-basket are kept and in any case, are sure to be examined. There are no means of destroying it;" I also think you missed the big mistake in Death in the Clouds. That was the whole dart and blowpipe set up. He should have just jabbed her and pulled the dart out. (He could have gotten rid of the dart through the ventilator.) No one would have immediately jumped to the idea that she'd been poisoned. The mark on her neck would have been put down to the wasp sting which was the whole point of bringing the wasp on the plane. The passengers wouldn't have been searched. The empty matchbox wouldn't have been found. Maybe the coroner finds out she was poisoned. Maybe the coroner doesn't. But instead he commits a murder in a way to immediately draw attention to the fact that it's a murder. Should have just stuck with the wasp misdirection. But he bolluxes up a perfectly good cover by deciding to use a poisoned dart with blowpipe as another misdirection.

As a mystery author (one book), I enjoy these videos. However, "mentally-ill murderer" is not grammatical. English punctuation rules forbid placing a hyphen between an adverb ending in "-ly" and the adjective.

Interesting to see the books collected by decade. I think it's a pretty uncontroversial ranking - her books are objectively at their peak in the middle of her career. Wow, the 30s were a great decade, imagine anyone else writing that many icons in that amount of time!

You could have mentioned the quite exceptional Curtain and Sleeping Murder, both written in the 1940s. But your overall classification is correct.

The Harlequin Tea-set is the only short story she wrote in the early 1970s. (NOT in the 1950s, as some site would have us believe.) It is, as a I am sure you know, an exceedingly feeble story.

I always figured that John Christow knew that he deserved to be killed by his wife and that's why he wanted her protected. He knew he had it coming. As for Arlena Stewart, I don't think that she's ever been cast correctly. (Diana Rigg, as much as I love the actress, was absolutely wrong for the role from the book.) They need someone who's like Marilyn Monroe's character in Some Like It Hot. Naive, easily fooled, but absolutely sexually magnetic to the point that men can't keep their eyes off her and she attracts them like flies to sugar. (Which was the name of the character in Some Like It Hot: Sugar Kane.)

Caribbean and Halloween show rapid decline. OTOH Clouds and Evans are very convincing imho (though I’m probably conflating the videos with the books). Quinn is uniquely enigmatic and remarkable.

I knew the 30's would come out on top. Way too many iconic books there.

Though the 1970s is no question Christie's weakest decade, I defend Nemesis as her last great work. It's an innovative in a way I have never seen before: a mystery that at the beginning is completely undefined. There's something about its dreaminess that is deeply satisfying to me.

Without seeing your rankings, here are mine: #6 -- 1970s #5 -- 1960s #4 -- 1920s #3 -- 1950s #2 -- 1940s #1 -- 1930s Though it was very hard for me to decide between the 1920s and the 1950s. The twenties had The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Poirot Investigates, and Partners in Crime. And when I was in my teens, I loved The Secret Adversary and The Seven Dials Mystery. So if anyone wanted to put the 1920s as better than the 1950s, I wouldn't argue.

If you run out of ideas for content, you could consider reviewing fictional movies about the life of Christie. There is "Agatha," from the 1980s? about her disappearance; I remember it as being pretty good. And then there are the three recent ones made for British TV: one about her disappearance, one about her time in archaeological circles, and one about her time WWII. They were only so so, in my opinion. But you could tell what you think, and discuss if they are have any factual basis.

Another great video. I also agree with your ranking, with the exception of placing the 20s before the 50s. I believe that commenter Tim is right about the ones from the 50s being more rereadable. I also like the cold war thrillers, with their more relatable heroines, more than the 20s thrillers, with their madcap society girl heroines. But you almost persuaded me to change my mind. I strongly agree with your choice for best and worst decades. I first read "Passenger to Frankfurt" and "Postern of Fate" as a young teen Christie rabid fan, and even then I wondered why Postern had been allowed to be in print. I liked Passenger back then, because I thought the plan to establish the fourth Reich was chilling. I reread it a few years ago and had to conclude that it just wasn't very good. And the best Christies from the best decade are some of the best books ever written, IMHO.