The A.B.C. Murders
Encyclopedia
The A.B.C. Murders is a work of detective fiction
by Agatha Christie
and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club
on January 6, 1936
and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company
on February 14 of the same year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence
(7/6) and the US edition at $
2.00.
The book features the characters of Hercule Poirot
, Arthur Hastings
and Chief Inspector Japp
. The form of the novel is unusual, combining first
and third-person narrative. Christie had previously experimented with this approach (famously pioneered by Charles Dickens
in Bleak House
), in her novel The Man in the Brown Suit
. What is unusual in The A.B.C. Murders is that the third-person narrative is supposedly reconstructed by the first-person narrator
, Hastings. This approach shows Christie's commitment to experimenting with point of view
, famously exemplified by The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
.
Nobody knows that Cust is in Doncaster, in the cinema hall. He is revealed to be in a dazed state after a blackout. He is shocked to see blood on his sleeve & a knife in his pocket, about which he remembers nothing. Realizing the implications, he decides to run away. He is unaware of the fact that Michael has seen him in Doncaster. He tries to throw his landlady & Lily off the track by giving them false location. However, when Lily learns from Michael about Cust being in Doncaster, the duo get suspicious & tip off Crome. A trap is set for Cust, but luckily, he runs away undetected. However, he soon surrenders voluntarily. A raid in his apartment gives enough damning evidence against him. Cust has no memories of committing other murders either, but believes himself to be guilty by now. According to Cust, he works as a salesman for a reputed firm, which gave him his typewriter as a gift. The firm denies everything. His appointment letter & the ABC letters are found to be written on his own typewriter.
Unopened packets of ABC railway guides are also found, but Cust claims he thought the packets were extra stocking packets. Although cornered, Cust believes that he didn't kill Betty, since he had an alibi for that night. Poirot too finds the matter fishy & spends days pondering, hardly talking to anyone. Then, one day he gives a backhanded compliment to Hastings & summons the Legion meeting. Summing up th case, Poirot starts pointiong the anomalies. ABC could have easily killed Alice & Franz would be arrested. Yet, ABC chose to advertise the murder, something unlikely for a serial killer. Cust couldn't have killed Betty in any case: he had neither the brains nor would a girl like Betty court him. Also, ABC wrote the letters to Poirot instead of police or a newspaper. Based on this, ABC had to be a handsome, charming, smart & cruel man, not a serial killer. Poirot points out that motive was equally important: Donald had one to kill Betty, but that wouldn't be enough to do more murders.
It is clear that ABC is actually a perfectly sane man trying to hide a murder as a part of serial killings. Based on the tone of letters, ABC has a disdain for foreigners like Poirot. This was one of the reasons ABC wrote the letters to him. Poirot tells that the Churston murder could have been easily avoided if the 3rd letter arrived on time. On this, Hastings exclaims that the letter was meant to go astray. Poirot reminds him that he had said the same thing earlier too, but no one took him seriously, though, ironically this apparently simple explanation was correct. ABC deliberately misspelled Poirot's address so that police came after Carmichael was murdered. A letter sent to a private detective could easily go astray, not one sent to police or a newspaper. This was another reason why Poirot received the letters.
Now Poirot accuses Franklin of being ABC. Poirot points out that Franklin has an apparent hatred for Thora, also a foreigner. Although Thora considered Carmichael a father figure, it was quite likely that the two would end up marrying after Lady Clarke's death, as usually happens with widowers. In that case, Franklin stood to lose the estate, as Thora would surely bear Carmichael's children. So, he had to kill Carmichael. After seeing Cust in a bar & learning his pompous name, Franklin thought about ABC. He prepared all the plans & hired Cust as the firm, directing him to the murder scenes. After killing Carmichael, Franklin had to kill atleast one more person to prevent the fingers to point towards him. He killed George, wiped the blood on Cust's sleeve, dropped the knife in Cust's pocket & framed him. The whole case was quite self-explanatory.
Franklin laughs off the accusations, but Poirot tells him about various circumstantial evidences gathered against him after he became a suspect. After learning that his fingerprint was found on Cust's typewriter, Franklin tries to commit suicide. Poirot has anticipated this & already had his revolver emptied. Franklin is arrested & Cust is set free. Cust is offered handsome amount to publish his story, about which Poirot gives him some profit earning advice. Poirot also hints that Cust's headache is due to wrong number of his spectacles. Talking about the case later, Hastings is stunned to learn that the fingerprint was a bluff. Poirot has played matchmaker again: for Megan & Donald. In the end, Poirot comments that he & Hastings went on a hunting trip(just as Hastings intended to do at the start of the novel).
Isaac Anderson in The New York Times Book Review
of February 16, 1936 finished his review by stating, "This story is a baffler of the first water, written in Agatha Christie's best manner. It seems to us the very best things she has done, not even excepting Roger Ackroyd
.
In The Observer
s issue of January 5, 1936, "Torquemada" (Edward Powys Mathers
) said, "Ingenuity...is a mild term for Mrs. Christie's gift. In The A.B.C. Murders, rightly chosen by the [crime] club as its book of the month, she has quite altered her method of attack upon the reader, and yet the truth behind this fantastic series of killings is as fairly elusive as any previous truth which Poirot has had to capture for us. The reader adopts two quite different mental attitudes as he reads. At first, and for a great many pages, he is asking himself: "Is Agatha Christie going to let me down? Does she think she can give us this kind of tale as a detective story and get away with it?" Then the conviction comes to him that he has been wronging the authoress, and that he alone is beginning to see through her artifice. In the last chapter he finds, because brilliant circus work with a troop of red horses and one dark herring has diverted his attention from a calm consideration of motive, he has not been wronging, but merely wrong. It is noticeable, by the way, that characters break off at intervals to tell us that we have to do with "a homicidal murderer." We are ready to take this for granted until Mrs. Christie (I wouldn't put it past her) gives us one who isn't."
E. R. Punshon reviewed the novel in the February 6, 1936 issue of The Guardian
when he said, "Some readers are drawn to the detective novel by the sheer interest of watching and perhaps anticipating the logical development of a given theme, others take their pleasure in following the swift succession of events in an exciting story, and yet others find themselves chiefly interested in the psychological reactions caused by crime impinging upon the routine of ordinary life. Skilful and happy is that author who can weave into a unity this triple thread. In Mrs. Agatha Christie's new book…the task is attempted with success." He went on to say, "In the second chapter, Mrs. Christie shows us what seems to be the maniac himself. But the wise reader, remembering other tales of Mrs. Christie's, will murmur to himself 'I trust her not; odds on she is fooling me,' and so will continue to a climax it is not 'odds on' but a dead cert he will not have guessed. To an easy and attractive style and an adequate if not very profound sense of character Mrs. Christie adds an extreme and astonishing ingenuity, nor does it very greatly matter that it is quite impossible to accept the groundwork of her tale or to suppose that any stalking-horse would behave so invariably so exactly as required. As at Bexhill, a hitch would always occur. In the smooth and apparently effortless perfection with which she achieves her ends Mrs. Christie reminds one of Noel Coward
; she might, indeed, in that respect be called the Noel Coward of the detective novel."
An unnamed reviewer in the Daily Mirror of January 16, 1936 said, "I'm thanking heaven I've got a name that begins with a letter near the end of the alphabet! That's just in case some imitative soul uses this book as a text book for some nice little series of murders." They summed up, "It's Agatha Christie at her best."
Robert Barnard
: "A classic, still fresh story, beautifully worked out. It differs from the usual pattern in that we seem to be involved in a chase: the series of murders appears to be the work of a maniac. In fact the solution reasserts the classic pattern of a closed circle of suspects, with a logical, well-motivated murder plan. The English detective story cannot embrace the irrational, it seems. A total success – but thank God she didn't try taking it through to Z."
with Tony Randall
as Hercule Poirot.
with David Suchet
playing the role of Hercule Poirot. The adaptation remains faithful to the novel, with some minor changes and characters omitted. In the end the murderer tries to escape while in the novel, he tries to commit suicide. The cast included:
. The game has players control Captain Hastings and must solve the mystery by inspecting crime scenes and questioning suspects. In order to appeal to players familiar with the original story, the game also offers the option to play with a different murderer, which results in different clues and testimony throughout the entire game. The game received mediocre reviews, but was commended for its faithful recreation of the source material.
The first true publication of The A.B.C. Murders occurred in the US with an abridged version appearing in the November 1935 (Volume XCIX, Number 5) issue of Cosmopolitan
magazine with illustrations by Frederic Mizen.
The UK serialisation was in sixteen parts in the Daily Express
from Monday, November 28 to Thursday December 12, 1935. All of the instalments carried an illustration by Steven Spurrier
. This version did not contain any chapter divisions and totally omitted the foreword as well as chapters twenty-six, thirty-two and thirty-five. In addition most of chapters seven and twenty were missing. Along with other abridgements throughout the novel, this serialisation omitted almost forty percent of the text that appeared in the published novel.
Detective fiction
Detective fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator , either professional or amateur, investigates a crime, often murder.-In ancient literature:...
by Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club
Collins Crime Club
The Collins Crime Club was an imprint of UK book publishers William Collins & Co Ltd and ran from May 6, 1930 to April 1994. Customers registered their name and address with the club and were sent a newsletter every three months which advised them of the latest books which had been or were to be...
on January 6, 1936
1936 in literature
The year 1936 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Life magazine is first published.* The Carnegie Medal for excellence in children's literature is established in the UK.-New books:...
and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company
Dodd, Mead and Company
Dodd, Mead and Company was one of the pioneer publishing houses of the United States, based in New York City. Under several names, the firm operated from 1839 until 1990. Its history properly began in 1870, with the retirement of its founder, Moses Woodruff Dodd. Control passed to his son Frank...
on February 14 of the same year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence
British sixpence coin
The sixpence, known colloquially as the tanner, or half-shilling, was a British pre-decimal coin, worth six pence, or 1/40th of a pound sterling....
(7/6) and the US edition at $
Dollar sign
The dollar or peso sign is a symbol primarily used to indicate the various peso and dollar units of currency around the world.- Origin :...
2.00.
The book features the characters of Hercule Poirot
Hercule Poirot
Hercule Poirot is a fictional Belgian detective created by Agatha Christie. Along with Miss Marple, Poirot is one of Christie's most famous and long-lived characters, appearing in 33 novels and 51 short stories published between 1920 and 1975 and set in the same era.Poirot has been portrayed on...
, Arthur Hastings
Arthur Hastings
Captain Arthur Hastings, OBE, is a fictional character, the amateur sleuthing partner and best friend of Agatha Christie's Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot...
and Chief Inspector Japp
Chief Inspector Japp
Detective Chief Inspector James Japp is a fictional character who appears in several of Agatha Christie's novels featuring Hercule Poirot.-Japp in Christie's work:...
. The form of the novel is unusual, combining first
First-person narrative
First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...
and third-person narrative. Christie had previously experimented with this approach (famously pioneered by Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
in Bleak House
Bleak House
Bleak House is the ninth novel by Charles Dickens, published in twenty monthly installments between March 1852 and September 1853. It is held to be one of Dickens's finest novels, containing one of the most vast, complex and engaging arrays of minor characters and sub-plots in his entire canon...
), in her novel The Man in the Brown Suit
The Man in the Brown Suit
The Man in the Brown Suit is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and was first published in the UK by The Bodley Head on August 22 1924 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year...
. What is unusual in The A.B.C. Murders is that the third-person narrative is supposedly reconstructed by the first-person narrator
Narrator
A narrator is, within any story , the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for...
, Hastings. This approach shows Christie's commitment to experimenting with point of view
Point of view (literature)
The narrative mode is the set of methods the author of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical story uses to convey the plot to the audience. Narration, the process of presenting the narrative, occurs because of the narrative mode...
, famously exemplified by The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by William Collins & Sons in June 1926 and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company on the 19th of the same month. It features Hercule Poirot as the lead detective...
.
Summary
A serial killer calling himself ABC sends typewritten letters to Poirot giving information about the murders he is about to do, putting police & Poirot on a chase. ABC also leaves a calling card on crime scene - ABC railway guides depicting the place of crime. Poirot tries to investigate this crime with Hastings & Japp, his old friends. ABC commits 4 murders in alphabetical order, posing a serious challenge for Poirot. Poirot, teamed up with Hastings & Japp, has to take help from many new faces. In a seemingly unrelated story, a travelling stocking salesman named Alexander Bonaparte Cust seems to be behaving suspiciously. Cust was drafted, where he suffered an attack on his head. The attack causes headaches & memory blackouts. Cust is an epileptic too. He has visited every crime scene, the day the murders occurred. Could he be the elusive ABC?Characters in surname alphabetical order
- ABC - A cold blooded serial killer who is Poirot's nemesis in this novel. His identity is unknown. He kills his victims in alphabetical order and leaves an ABC railway guide depicting the scene of crime on it as his calling card.
- Alice Ascher - ABC's first victim, an old woman running a tobacco shop in AndoverAndover, New HampshireAndover is a town in Merrimack County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 2,371 at the 2010 census. Andover includes the villages of Cilleyville, Potter Place, and East Andover, in addition to the town center...
. Alice is separated from her drunkard husband, a man who is terrified of her. She has no children, only a niece. - Franz Ascher - Alice's alcoholic husband, who is more afraid of her than she should be of him. Although a prime suspect of Alice's murder, he may not be the killer.
- Elizabeth "Betty" Barnard - ABC's 2nd victim, a young part-time waitress in BexhillBexhill-on-SeaBexhill-on-Sea is a town and seaside resort in the county of East Sussex, in the south of England, within the District of Rother. It has a population of approximately 40,000...
. Betty is a flirtatious woman who likes to be entertained by men. - Megan Barnard - Betty's elder sister. She is a sensible and comparatively down to earth person than Betty. She disapproves Betty's ways but wishes well for her and Donald. It is implied that she has feelings for Donald.
- Milly Bigley - A co-worker of Betty. Milly is a girl and a plain looking one at that, two things that make her an eyesore in Betty's eyes.
- Sir Carmichael Clarke - ABC's 3rd victim, a rich old man in ChurstonChurstonChurston Ferrers is a historic civil parish within Torbay, in Devon, England. It contains the two villages of Churston, a coastal village, and the now larger Galmpton. It is situated in between Paignton and Brixham....
. Sir Carmichael is a childless man married to a cancer stricken wife. - Lady Charlotte Clarke - The widow of Carmichael. She is herself dying due to cancer and kept on various drugs. Her condition has made her delusional and irritated. However, she provides a vital clue to Poirot about the case.
- Franklin Clarke - Carmichael's younger brother. He has seen good and bad times of his brother and is Carmichael's immediate successor.
- Inspector Crome - An Inspector assigned Betty's murder case. He has a low opinion about Poirot.
- Alexander Bonaparte Cust - A travelling salesman with a pompous name. He sells stockings for a living and is an epileptic. He was drafted in war, where he received a blow on head, making him prone to blackouts and severe headaches. His paths seem to cross with ABC's too much.
- Roger Emmanuel Downs - A schoolteacher present in cinema hall of Doncaster. ABC killed George instead of him as he was clearly the logical victim. He sat only two seats away from George and realized that George was murdered.
- Mary Drower - The niece of Alice. She works in a rich household and has Alice as her only relative.
- George Earlsfield - ABC's 4th victim in a cinema hall in DoncasterDoncasterDoncaster is a town in South Yorkshire, England, and the principal settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster. The town is about from Sheffield and is popularly referred to as "Donny"...
. He was a barber, mistakenly killed by ABC. - Donald Fraser - Betty's would be fiancee. He is a temperamental person who disapproves Betty's nature. He is the prime suspect of Betty's murder.
- Thora Grey - Carmichael's young assistant. She regards him as a father figure. It is implied that she has feelings for Franklin.
- Michael Hartigan - An old friend of Cust and an acquaintance of his landlady.
- Captain Arthur Hastings - A retired colonel who is Poirot's old friend and companion on the case. An impatient man, whose lack of imagination is often playfully ridiculed by Poirot.
- Detective Chief Inspector James Japp - Another old friend of Hercule Poirot, who is saddled with the case.
- Lily Marbury - The secretary of Cust's landlady.
- Hercule Poirot - A renowned Belgian detective famous for solving cases using his "little grey cells".
- Doctor Thompson - A doctor who is assigned the case. He tries to make ABC's psychological profile of ABC.
Plot
The novel chronicles the case from Hastings point of view, after which the events in life of Cust are described. Poirot is aided by his old friends Hastings & Japp, along with Inspector Crome, Dr. Thompson & a Legion of relatives of the deceased. ABC now directs Poirot to Doncaster, when a Ledger is going to be run the day when next murder will be committed. Although clueless earlier, Lady Clarke gives Poirot an important clue: she saw a shabbily dressed salesman talking with Thora. Based on Thora's testimony, stockings found in Alice's home & facts given by the Legion members, Poirot turns up in Doncaster with everybody else. He tells them to scour every possible area. However, ABC succeeds again, killing George, a barber in a cinema hall instead of Roger Downs, a local schoolteacher & a likely victim sitting just two chairs away from George.Nobody knows that Cust is in Doncaster, in the cinema hall. He is revealed to be in a dazed state after a blackout. He is shocked to see blood on his sleeve & a knife in his pocket, about which he remembers nothing. Realizing the implications, he decides to run away. He is unaware of the fact that Michael has seen him in Doncaster. He tries to throw his landlady & Lily off the track by giving them false location. However, when Lily learns from Michael about Cust being in Doncaster, the duo get suspicious & tip off Crome. A trap is set for Cust, but luckily, he runs away undetected. However, he soon surrenders voluntarily. A raid in his apartment gives enough damning evidence against him. Cust has no memories of committing other murders either, but believes himself to be guilty by now. According to Cust, he works as a salesman for a reputed firm, which gave him his typewriter as a gift. The firm denies everything. His appointment letter & the ABC letters are found to be written on his own typewriter.
Unopened packets of ABC railway guides are also found, but Cust claims he thought the packets were extra stocking packets. Although cornered, Cust believes that he didn't kill Betty, since he had an alibi for that night. Poirot too finds the matter fishy & spends days pondering, hardly talking to anyone. Then, one day he gives a backhanded compliment to Hastings & summons the Legion meeting. Summing up th case, Poirot starts pointiong the anomalies. ABC could have easily killed Alice & Franz would be arrested. Yet, ABC chose to advertise the murder, something unlikely for a serial killer. Cust couldn't have killed Betty in any case: he had neither the brains nor would a girl like Betty court him. Also, ABC wrote the letters to Poirot instead of police or a newspaper. Based on this, ABC had to be a handsome, charming, smart & cruel man, not a serial killer. Poirot points out that motive was equally important: Donald had one to kill Betty, but that wouldn't be enough to do more murders.
It is clear that ABC is actually a perfectly sane man trying to hide a murder as a part of serial killings. Based on the tone of letters, ABC has a disdain for foreigners like Poirot. This was one of the reasons ABC wrote the letters to him. Poirot tells that the Churston murder could have been easily avoided if the 3rd letter arrived on time. On this, Hastings exclaims that the letter was meant to go astray. Poirot reminds him that he had said the same thing earlier too, but no one took him seriously, though, ironically this apparently simple explanation was correct. ABC deliberately misspelled Poirot's address so that police came after Carmichael was murdered. A letter sent to a private detective could easily go astray, not one sent to police or a newspaper. This was another reason why Poirot received the letters.
Now Poirot accuses Franklin of being ABC. Poirot points out that Franklin has an apparent hatred for Thora, also a foreigner. Although Thora considered Carmichael a father figure, it was quite likely that the two would end up marrying after Lady Clarke's death, as usually happens with widowers. In that case, Franklin stood to lose the estate, as Thora would surely bear Carmichael's children. So, he had to kill Carmichael. After seeing Cust in a bar & learning his pompous name, Franklin thought about ABC. He prepared all the plans & hired Cust as the firm, directing him to the murder scenes. After killing Carmichael, Franklin had to kill atleast one more person to prevent the fingers to point towards him. He killed George, wiped the blood on Cust's sleeve, dropped the knife in Cust's pocket & framed him. The whole case was quite self-explanatory.
Franklin laughs off the accusations, but Poirot tells him about various circumstantial evidences gathered against him after he became a suspect. After learning that his fingerprint was found on Cust's typewriter, Franklin tries to commit suicide. Poirot has anticipated this & already had his revolver emptied. Franklin is arrested & Cust is set free. Cust is offered handsome amount to publish his story, about which Poirot gives him some profit earning advice. Poirot also hints that Cust's headache is due to wrong number of his spectacles. Talking about the case later, Hastings is stunned to learn that the fingerprint was a bluff. Poirot has played matchmaker again: for Megan & Donald. In the end, Poirot comments that he & Hastings went on a hunting trip(just as Hastings intended to do at the start of the novel).
Literary significance and reception
The Times Literary Supplement of January 11, 1936 concluded with a note of admiration for the plot that, "If Mrs. Christie ever deserts fiction for crime, she will be very dangerous: no one but Poirot will catch her."Isaac Anderson in The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...
of February 16, 1936 finished his review by stating, "This story is a baffler of the first water, written in Agatha Christie's best manner. It seems to us the very best things she has done, not even excepting Roger Ackroyd
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by William Collins & Sons in June 1926 and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company on the 19th of the same month. It features Hercule Poirot as the lead detective...
.
In The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
s issue of January 5, 1936, "Torquemada" (Edward Powys Mathers
Edward Powys Mathers
Edward Powys Mathers was an English translator and poet, and also a pioneer of compiling advanced cryptic crosswords....
) said, "Ingenuity...is a mild term for Mrs. Christie's gift. In The A.B.C. Murders, rightly chosen by the [crime] club as its book of the month, she has quite altered her method of attack upon the reader, and yet the truth behind this fantastic series of killings is as fairly elusive as any previous truth which Poirot has had to capture for us. The reader adopts two quite different mental attitudes as he reads. At first, and for a great many pages, he is asking himself: "Is Agatha Christie going to let me down? Does she think she can give us this kind of tale as a detective story and get away with it?" Then the conviction comes to him that he has been wronging the authoress, and that he alone is beginning to see through her artifice. In the last chapter he finds, because brilliant circus work with a troop of red horses and one dark herring has diverted his attention from a calm consideration of motive, he has not been wronging, but merely wrong. It is noticeable, by the way, that characters break off at intervals to tell us that we have to do with "a homicidal murderer." We are ready to take this for granted until Mrs. Christie (I wouldn't put it past her) gives us one who isn't."
E. R. Punshon reviewed the novel in the February 6, 1936 issue of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
when he said, "Some readers are drawn to the detective novel by the sheer interest of watching and perhaps anticipating the logical development of a given theme, others take their pleasure in following the swift succession of events in an exciting story, and yet others find themselves chiefly interested in the psychological reactions caused by crime impinging upon the routine of ordinary life. Skilful and happy is that author who can weave into a unity this triple thread. In Mrs. Agatha Christie's new book…the task is attempted with success." He went on to say, "In the second chapter, Mrs. Christie shows us what seems to be the maniac himself. But the wise reader, remembering other tales of Mrs. Christie's, will murmur to himself 'I trust her not; odds on she is fooling me,' and so will continue to a climax it is not 'odds on' but a dead cert he will not have guessed. To an easy and attractive style and an adequate if not very profound sense of character Mrs. Christie adds an extreme and astonishing ingenuity, nor does it very greatly matter that it is quite impossible to accept the groundwork of her tale or to suppose that any stalking-horse would behave so invariably so exactly as required. As at Bexhill, a hitch would always occur. In the smooth and apparently effortless perfection with which she achieves her ends Mrs. Christie reminds one of Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
; she might, indeed, in that respect be called the Noel Coward of the detective novel."
An unnamed reviewer in the Daily Mirror of January 16, 1936 said, "I'm thanking heaven I've got a name that begins with a letter near the end of the alphabet! That's just in case some imitative soul uses this book as a text book for some nice little series of murders." They summed up, "It's Agatha Christie at her best."
Robert Barnard
Robert Barnard
Robert Barnard is an English crime writer, critic and lecturer.- Life and work :Born in Essex, Barnard was educated at the Colchester Royal Grammar School and at Balliol College in Oxford....
: "A classic, still fresh story, beautifully worked out. It differs from the usual pattern in that we seem to be involved in a chase: the series of murders appears to be the work of a maniac. In fact the solution reasserts the classic pattern of a closed circle of suspects, with a logical, well-motivated murder plan. The English detective story cannot embrace the irrational, it seems. A total success – but thank God she didn't try taking it through to Z."
Film, TV and other adaptations
The first adaptation of the novel was the 1965 film The Alphabet MurdersThe Alphabet Murders
The Alphabet Murders is a 1965 British detective film based on the novel The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie, starring Tony Randall as Hercule Poirot. The part of Poirot had originally been intended for Zero Mostel but the film was delayed because Agatha Christie objected to the script. The...
with Tony Randall
Tony Randall
Tony Randall was a U.S. actor, comic, producer and director.-Early years:Randall was born Arthur Leonard Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Julia and Mogscha Rosenberg, an art and antiques dealer...
as Hercule Poirot.
Agatha Christie's Poirot
The novel was adapted in 1992 for the television series Agatha Christie's PoirotAgatha Christie's Poirot
Agatha Christie's Poirot is a British television drama that has aired on ITV since 1989. It stars David Suchet as Agatha Christie's fictional detective Hercule Poirot. It was originally made by LWT and is now made by ITV Studios...
with David Suchet
David Suchet
David Suchet, CBE, is an English actor, known for his work on British television. He is recognised for his RTS- and BPG award-winning performance as Augustus Melmotte in the 2001 British TV mini-drama The Way We Live Now, alongside Matthew Macfadyen and Paloma Baeza, and a 1991 British Academy...
playing the role of Hercule Poirot. The adaptation remains faithful to the novel, with some minor changes and characters omitted. In the end the murderer tries to escape while in the novel, he tries to commit suicide. The cast included:
- Hugh FraserHugh Fraser (actor)Hugh Fraser is an English actor and theatre director.-Early life:Born in London but raised in the East Midlands, Fraser studied acting at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art...
as Captain Hastings - Philip JacksonPhilip Jackson (actor)Philip Jackson is an English actor, known for his many television and film roles, most notably as Chief Inspector Japp in the television series Poirot and as Abbot Hugo, one of the recurring adversaries in the cult 1980s series Robin of Sherwood. Jackson was born in Retford, Nottinghamshire...
as Chief Inspector Japp - Donald SumpterDonald SumpterDonald Sumpter is a British actor. He has appeared in film and television since the mid 1960s.-Life and work:One of his early television appearances was the 1968 Doctor Who serial The Wheel in Space with Patrick Troughton as the Doctor. He appeared in Doctor Who again in the 1972 serial The Sea...
as Alexander Bonaparte Cust - Donald DouglasDonald Douglas (actor)Donald Douglas is a Scottish actor who has appeared in films and many well known television shows including Doctor Who, Blake's 7, and The Avengers....
as Franklin Clarke - Nicholas FarrellNicholas FarrellNicholas Farrell is an English stage, film and television actor. His early screen career included the role of Aubrey Montague in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire. In 1983, he starred as Edmund Bertram in a television adaptation of the Jane Austen novel, Mansfield Park...
as Donald Fraser - Pippa GuardPippa GuardPhilippa Ann Guard is a British actress.Guard was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and belongs to a well-known theatrical family, whose members include her uncle Philip Guard, cousins Christopher Guard and Dominic Guard, and younger brother Alex Guard. Her father was an engineer who moved the family to...
as Megan Barnard
Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple
A four-part episode of the anime Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple is based on the book.Agatha Christie's The ABC Murders video game
In 2009, Dreamcatcher Interactive released a video game version of the novel for the Nintendo DSNintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
. The game has players control Captain Hastings and must solve the mystery by inspecting crime scenes and questioning suspects. In order to appeal to players familiar with the original story, the game also offers the option to play with a different murderer, which results in different clues and testimony throughout the entire game. The game received mediocre reviews, but was commended for its faithful recreation of the source material.
Publication history
- 1936, Collins Crime Club (London), January 6, 1936, Hardcover, 256 pp
- 1936, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), February 14, 1936, Hardcover, 306 pp
- 1941, Pocket BooksPocket BooksPocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.- History :Pocket produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in America in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing industry...
(New York), Paperback, (Pocket number 88) - 1948, Penguin BooksPenguin BooksPenguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
, Paperback, (Penguin number 683), 224 pp - 1958, Pan BooksPan BooksPan Books is an imprint which first became active in the 1940s and is now part of the British-based Macmillan Publishers owned by German publishers, Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group....
, Paperback (Great Pan 95), 191 pp - 1962, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollinsHarperCollinsHarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
), Paperback, 192 pp - 1976, Greenway edition of collected works (William Collins), Hardcover, 251 pp, ISBN 0-00-231014-7
- 1978, Greenway edition of collected works (Dodd Mead), Hardcover, 251 pp
- 1979, Pan Books, Paperback, 191 pp
- 1980, Collins Crime Club (London), Golden Jubilee of Crime Club with introduction by Julian SymonsJulian SymonsJulian Gustave Symons 1912 - 1994) was a British crime writer and poet. He also wrote social and military history, biography and studies of literature.-Life and work:...
, Hardcover, 224 pp, ISBN 0-00-231323-5 - 1980, Ulverscroft Large-print edition, Hardback, ISBN 0-70-890590-0
- 2006, Poirot Facsimile Edition (Facsimile of 1936 UK First Edition), HarperCollins, September 4, 2006, Hardcover ISBN 0-00-723443-0
The first true publication of The A.B.C. Murders occurred in the US with an abridged version appearing in the November 1935 (Volume XCIX, Number 5) issue of Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan (magazine)
Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...
magazine with illustrations by Frederic Mizen.
The UK serialisation was in sixteen parts in the Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
from Monday, November 28 to Thursday December 12, 1935. All of the instalments carried an illustration by Steven Spurrier
Steven Spurrier
Steven Spurrier was a British artist and painter.After his apprenticeship to his silversmith father, Spurrier studied art and became a freelance magazine illustrator. His work appeared in magazines such as The Graphic, Illustrated London News and the Radio Times. He also produced posters for...
. This version did not contain any chapter divisions and totally omitted the foreword as well as chapters twenty-six, thirty-two and thirty-five. In addition most of chapters seven and twenty were missing. Along with other abridgements throughout the novel, this serialisation omitted almost forty percent of the text that appeared in the published novel.
International titles
- Dutch: ABC-Mysterie (ABC-Mystery)
- French: A.B.C. contre Poirot (A.B.C. versus Poirot)
- German: Die Morde des Herrn ABC (The murders of Mr. ABC)
- Hungarian: Poirot és az ABC (Poirot and the Alphabet), Az ABC-gyilkosságok (The A.B.C. Murders)
- Italian: La serie infernale (The Hellish Series)
- Russian: Убийство по алфавиту (=Ubiystvo po alfavitu, The Alphabet Murder), Убийства по алфавиту (=Ubiystva po alfavitu, The Alphabet Murders)
- Spanish: El Misterio de la Guía de Ferrocarriles (The Railway Guide Mystery)
- Romanian: Ucigaşul ABC (The ABC Killer)
External links
- The ABC Murders at the official Agatha Christie website