Book Bearings
The A.B.C. Murders
Part of the Hercule Poirot series
- 227 pages · about 4 hours
- First published 1936
- 142 editions
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1 About this book
Captain Hastings, back in England from South America, finds his friend Hercule Poirot in receipt of a taunting letter signed A.B.C., which warns of a crime to come. Soon afterward Alice Ascher is found dead in Andover. More letters follow, and more deaths, working through the alphabet, and Poirot, with Hastings and Chief Inspector Japp, has to find what links the victims before the next letter is acted on. First published in 1936, the novel is unusual for Agatha Christie in pursuing a serial murderer, and in mixing Hastings's own narration with chapters told from outside it.
- Mystery
- Private investigators
- Serial murders
- Thrillers
- Humor
- Mystery & detective, traditional
- Series
- Zhen tan xiao shuo
2 What to expect
A Hercule Poirot mystery with an unusual shape: someone is committing murders in alphabetical order and announcing each one to the detective in advance. It works as a chase and a puzzle at once, with Hastings narrating and occasional chapters that follow a different figure. It is short, brisk and ingeniously plotted, and a good example of how Christie misdirects her audience.
Good for readers who want: a classic whodunit, a serial-murder puzzle, and a quick, clever read.
3 About Agatha Christie
Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
4 More by Agatha Christie
5 Similar books
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- The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
- The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
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- My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
- The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris