Agatha Christie

Sometimes players make their own fun, and I wanted to share an amazing story from a recent game where their hubris (and love for dramatic reveals) was their undoing.

A recurring villain in my campaign has been an extremely powerful ghost that frequently possesses NPCs in order to manipulate the party. This came to a head when the Ranger killed his own love interest - a mercenary accompanying the players since the start of the game - thinking he'd been betrayed by him.

As the cackling ghost managed to escape, gleefully tormenting the poor Ranger, my players declared that they despised this character like no other villain they'd ever encountered.

It was as my players hit level 11 that they thought they'd finally found a solution. The Cleric came up with a plan to use Turn Undead and a full array of anti-undead spells such as Dispel Evil and Good. All they needed to do now was figure out which NPC was inevitable currently being possessed.

So the party did what anyone with a flair for the dramatic would do: they sent a message out to basically every named character in their current city, calling in every favour they had to round them up onto a single fortified room. There, they had the barbarian seal the doors, had the Ranger and druid keep a close eye on the suspects, all while the Cleric climbed into a table and began explaining "why he'd gathered them all here today".

Their vindication upon exposing the villainous ghost was palpable... making it all the more dramatic when they then realised that what they'd actually done was to back a powerful enemy into a corner and hand him an entire room filled with hostages.

As a side note, the Spectral Cloud with an upgraded ghost's Possession trait and a few legendary actions makes for an excellent high level ghost stat block - the AOE really comes in handy if you need to demonstrate callous disregard for human life.

My players fought incredibly and emerged victorious, but 6 NPCs (including some of their absolute favourites) had died.

The party pivoted to desperately trying to find enough diamonds for the cleric to bring everyone back, and it ended up being an incredibly sweet moment where the many, many people the party had saved in their adventures were able to return the favour, donating what few weddings rings and jewellery they had to make things right.

In summary: you should absolutely let your players try to wildly shift the genre of your game, playing into "big reveal" moments. This was one of the best sessions I've ever had the privilege to run, and it was almost completely driven by my players.

I am baffled by why I didn’t try Agatha Christie sooner. I guess I falsely assumed she might be like some other English mystery authors like P.D. James (an undoubtedly beautiful writer but plots much too slow for my taste and not enough balance of description and action). I also prefer semi-contemporary and contemporary authors so maybe I was discounting her? But I just read Murder on the Orient Express and I’m now a huge fan and can’t believe how long I waited to read her. She was an amazing writer—great dialogue, sense of humor, sets the mood and describes the setting SO well.

The whole point of this post is that now all I want to do is curl up in bed for like a week and read a giant anthology of her books. I’ve already got And Then There Were None on my TBR list but if anyone feels passionately about any of her books or has ideas for which ones I should read next, please drop them :)

I've been looking for a good mystery novel and I saw lots of people recommend "And then there were none" by the amazing Agatha Christie. I had never read anything of her works, but boy, did I love it! I admit I had a bit of a hard time understanding some parts (since I'm not a native English speaker), but it really surprised me and I enjoyed every single chapter. And I absolutely didn't see the plot twist coming, I was shocked. The characters were so well-written, too! You really get into their minds so easily, you get to understand their fears, their reasons to believe who the suspect might be, it really makes you empathize with them. Now I have "Crooked house" by the same author on my reading list and I honestly can't wait to read it.

I am doing a re-read and find it hugely enjoyable.

For me it honestly doesn’t take away the pleasure of reading them even if I do happen to remember who the murderer is.

I legitimately don’t understand how she was so damn good at writing. She’s probably the most compulsively un-putdownable author I’ve ever read. Her technique has never been equaled. I can think of only one other reading experience that came close and that’s Stephen King’s The Eyes of the Dragon (and I’m not even a King fan!).

What do you think? Is she the most compulsively readable author of all time? What are your favorite Christies?

I just finished And Then There Were None.

Agatha Christie really did that. She really had me there at the end, I will not lie. I have never audibly gasped while reading a book until tonight. It is now 2 hours past my bedtime because I couldn’t put this book down. Now I’m here because I feel a sudden rush of energy and I don’t know what do with myself.

I’ve only read ATTWN and Murder on the Orient Express so far. I am now very much looking forward to reading more of her books.

***Good morning everyone! Thank you all for sharing your awards, reactions, and recommendations! It has been so fun scrolling through this thread and reading the comments!

To those that haven’t read the book: as a few comments have pointed out, the book has some casual racism and sexism in it. Today I learned that the original book and its title were edited over the years to erase some of the racism. Something to consider before you pick it up to read.

I also would like to note that I haven’t really read an extensive amount of murder mysteries, so I was quite bamboozled by this one. I’m finding that some readers thought it fell flat at the end, which is valid! I enjoyed it, and hope you will be amused by it too if you do decide to read 🙂

I’m reading my very first AC mystery, Closed Casket.

I love it so far, it’s a very cozy mystery murder style plot, it’s clever, it’s funny, and I really enjoy the writing style and characters.

I’m a long time avid reader and writer. But I’ve had a rough decade (yes decade) and found that I finally am less mentally exhausted.

I’ve missed reading books from beginning to end, but going through some major life crisis left me spending years just scrolling at the end of the day because I couldn’t find the emotional capacity to invest in a good book. It’s hard to explain.

I decided to start small and easy, and found a couple of books in my favorite genres, to get rid of my “rustiness”.

I’ve missed it a lot, and following this sub helped me get excited about books again, so thank you!

Also, a big part of it is that my partner has gently encouraged me to read again, I met him last year after some major time healing.

There’s a song called You And I by Ingrid Michaelson. There’s a line that says “I will help you read those books, and you will soothe my worried looks, and we can put the lonesome on the shelf.” I feel like having someone in your life that keeps you reading is so invaluable.

Anyways, I’d love to hear if anyone else reads AC, or left reading for a while, only to come back home again.

Agatha Christie's novels feel so cozy, like hanging out with a friend while they solve a dilemma. I can rely on Christie to give me a mystery where all the pieces are there, you just have to pay enough attention to the details of people’s personalities to put them all together. She also writes entertaining characters to interact with her detectives. And she can still keep you guessing! The path to the inevitable conclusion is always just as fun and entertaining as finally getting to solve the mystery at the end.

From a remote island to a snow-stalled train car, she favored locations isolated from society. By restricting the scope of her stories, Christie limited possible suspects and built tension by forcing characters to stay put— even with a killer among them.

Sometimes she further heightened the drama by making the characters strangers, unsure of who they can trust. But while her settings are eerie and extraordinary, her characters are just the opposite.

One of the biggest criticisms of Christie’s novels is that they’re full of two-dimensional people. But Christie avoided complex characters for a reason. By reducing people to a handful of simple traits, she provided readers with predictable suspects. Well, usually predictable. Christie also used the audience's expectations against them.

However, this typecasting sometimes relied on what contemporary readers know to be harmful stereotypes. She frequently caricatured particular occupations and ethnic groups for comic effect, reinforcing the prejudices of her time.

This is certainly not an element of Christie’s work worth emulating, and fortunately, many modern mystery writers have found less problematic ways to use this technique. Even when she got it wrong, Christie worked to make her characters feel authentic.

She closely observed the people around her and constantly scribbled down details from overheard conversations. She would then rearrange these details to piece her mysteries together, often switching who the murderer was as she worked. This approach kept information murky and disoriented even to the sharpest readers.

However, there’s an important balance to strike between being clever and being confusing. Nobody wants to read a predictable mystery, but if things get too convoluted you can lose your reader altogether. Christie handled this in part by keeping her language simple and accessible. She used short sentences and clear, snappy dialogue to help readers follow the information. This kind of clarity is essential because the best mysteries string their audience along with a carefully laid trail of clues.

When a character cries that “Everything tastes foul today,” just minutes before he dies, the reader races to determine who poisoned his beverage. But they’re likely failing to truly consider this clue. If everything tasted foul that day, then he’d been poisoned long before that drink.

Christie also used clues to intentionally mislead her audience. For example, readers might recognize a clue associated with one suspect, only to learn that it was being used to frame them. Other times, she built misdirection directly into the story’s structure— like when a narrator reporting the murder is revealed to be the killer.

Outside crime and clues, there’s one more ingredient in Christie’s formula: the detective. Christie created many sleuths, but her most enduring are Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. Neither this petit Belgian refugee nor this elderly amateur detective is a traditional hero. But their outsider status is exactly what helps them slip past security and make suspects let their guard down.

With Christie, a good clue is one the reader will remember, but usually, fail to completely understand that is what I think made her one of the greatest.

I know I’m YEARS late to this party but I just, on a whim, decided to read And Then There Were None. I was blown away! I immediately started the Hercule Poirot series after. Not only are the mysteries themselves incredible but the writing and characters are also. Her mysteries are so intricately woven that it just blows my mind how she can craft these stories so well. I love how she routinely has her characters discuss the mystery and layout different scenarios and give you a sort of hints to things that may be important. However, the grand reveal always catches me off guard but never feels “cheap” like some other mysteries I’ve read in the past.

I am so disappointed in myself for not reading her sooner. Agatha Christie is an absolute master of storytelling! I can’t wait to read more.

What is your favorite Agatha Christie novel and do you think there are any modern mystery writers that even remotely compare to the writing of Agatha Christie?

So I've been reading books since I was 6 and now that I'm turning 16 I found out that I'm starting to lose my interest in reading books. I was like yeah I have million better things to do, play games, study, hang out with friends etc. But still, I found reading books an awesome idea but I just couldn't get through any book. I started to panic and looked up the best authors, I tried Stephen King, George R. R. Martin, J. R. R. Tolkien and other famous authors. I still couldn't get through their books and I felt sad. I turned to the subreddit and asked for a crime/mystery book that keeps me on the edge of my seat all the time. And this is all what I had to do. A kind stranger suggested an Agatha Christie book for me and I was like wow, she is a really famous author, why didn't I think of her before. I looked up her best novels and I had to pick Murder on the Orient Express. And damn, this was the very first book that I read in literally one day. I started it yesterday at night and it kept me awake for a long time. I fell asleep, and when I woke up I had to make sure I wasn't dreaming, that I still have an awesome book in my hand. She jumps straight into action, you keep guessing, you want to read the next chapter because you want to know who is the murderer. And yes, there are very short chapters, you can read one in some minutes to take a break if you want, but no, it hooks you in. So yes, thank you , and thank you kind stranger, who suggested me this awesome author and her books. If you are struggling to read books, please give one of her books a try and see if you are still struggling.

I've not touched murder mysteries in a while. I read Agatha Christie's whole library one summer as a teenager but realised that I've never actually read a murder mystery by any other author.

I finished the Murder of Roger Ackroyd last night and damn that was good like very good. She proved again why people call her "Queen of Crime" cos the ending took me by total surprise. The most interesting thing is she took the concept from Sherlock Holmes and if you wanna guess who the killer is look where no one is looking but everyone is looking. It's all about how she wrote the book and how the layers unfolded one by one. You can always see who the killer is but you can't guess it cos you will suspect everyone except the person. the book is very good read.I would give it 11/10 one for making a fool out of me and everybody else who read the book.

Damn! What a read. It has been some time since I have read a book and I remember now why I love it. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. Even a bit scared at times. Never thought I'd be scared while reading a book. This was my first Agatha Christie novel and I felt it was a peculiar take on the crime genre. Even though the plot becomes clear after a few chapters, it still amazes and astonishes you. I found it a little difficult at first to remember the backgrounds of all the ten people but it helps when you read many chapters in one go. Don't want to spoil it for anyone but I loved the way it was ended. Onto 'Murder on the Orient Express' :)

Edit : Wow! I did not expect such a response. And thank you to all for recommending books. I am adding them to my list as they come. This is such a welcoming community. I'm really motivated to read more now and contribute back with reviews and recommendations :)

I have two:

1. I’m just not a big fan of “And then there were none”. It’s ok, but not not even close to my favorite.

2. The Secret of Chimneys is one of my favorites! Such a fun read.

Hell. I don't know where else to hype about this, I've been reading books for 7 years now, and why didn't I ever pick an Agatha Christie novel makes me wonder about my reading choices, you are telling me this masterpiece was around the whole time and I just chose not to read it?

The book I finished is "Death on the Nile"

I can't even begin to explain why I loved it too much. Usually when a writer is so famous or a novel is so famous, you start thinking that the actual books don't rise up to the hype, I found it beautiful how a detective story could hold this much exquisite expressions, the description, you could hear the gun fire, you could feel the boat on the sea. And I guess I am finally part of the fan club, it is indeed well deserved.

If anyone care to recommend her best works to me I'll be thankful!

Edit: I swear imma read and then there were none 😂💓

E.g. And then there were nuns; The Mystery of the Blue Drain

I just read my first book of hers- And Then There Were None. I read mostly classic fiction and am not a big fan of most contemporary fiction. To be honest there was not a lot of complexity to the plot. I knew that there were 9 or 10 people on an island that were going to lose their lives one by one, and actually all of them (the title). The book also lacked character development. It seems the author made the biggest effort in the mystery of who the actual killer was.

There was nothing witty or funny about the writing, nor is Christie a wordy, descriptive writer like Dickens. I'm not necessarily comparing here to Dickens because he is a different era and a different genre. I figured out who the killer was when the book was about 3/4 finished due to a certain clue. I do like trying new writers, but I did not get anything out of this. I have another book of hers in my shopping cart, but I'm taking it out.