Author: Steven J. Kolbe

Perhaps the most popular mystery novel of all time, this classic novel pits a nearly superhuman detective against a nearly unsolvable mystery—all in the claustrophobic confines of a snowed-in train. What makes this novel so popular and adaptable? Let’s take a look.

Neither of the film adaptations I’ve seen do this fantastic novel justice. As wonderful as Kenneth Branagh is, his portrayal of famed detective Hercule Poirot came off more cartoonish than superhuman. (That being said, I will be first in line for Death on the Nile, which is set to release later this year.) For me Poirot will always be Sherlock Holmes plus age and experience and a soul and mustaches and a Belgian accent. He isn’t a joke—although, I do have a number of Poirot novels to read.

If you haven’t read any Christie, this is a great introduction. And Then There Were None is arguably her best novel, but it doesn’t star Poirot. The first novel to feature the Belgian detective is A Mysterious Affair at Styles, but I argue this can be read after MOTOE. There are at least three reasons for this:

1. By the time Christie wrote this one, Hercule Poirot was established as a character and his keen senses are a wonder (at one point he reveals a character’s true identity by deciphering that an “H” we readers have been holding in our minds as a major clue is actually a Cyrillic “N.”)
2. The evidence and interviews are handled systematically in a highly teachable method (Poirot travels from train car to train car, establishing an easy to visualize chronology).
3. The climax and wrap-up are highly logical and highly surprising, and Poirot’s role is incredibly human rather than legalistic.

Furthermore, the characters, not just Poirot, are intensely fascinating in ways that characters from mysteries of that time period often weren’t. Frequently, a character existed for the sake of their clue or a telling anecdote or their role in the murder. Here, every person has a soul. Perhaps this is in part due to the historical context in which the book takes place. The kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby serves as a necessary backdrop for the novel.

Readers are still drawn to Agatha Christie today because of the brilliance of her detectives, her ability to render their thought processes intelligibly to her audience, and the complexity of even seemingly minor characters. For the aspiring mystery novelist, each of her novels serves as a master class in of itself, but especially this one.

Some take-aways after reading MOTOE:

1. Don’t forget to let your reader in on the detective’s thought process. Most of us won’t get there with just a list of clues.
2. Don’t forget to make your detective (whether they’re actual law enforcement or a curious/courageous individual) human.
3. It’s okay to make the make the crime nearly impossible to solve so long as when the detective reveals the answer, your reader feels that same joy one feels upon hearing the solution to a complicated but perfectly obvious riddle.

Haven’t read it? You must! Get a copy here.

Last year’s Edgar Award winner for best novel, Elly Griffin’s The Stranger Diaries looks at what happens when love turns deadly.

Buy it here: https://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Diaries-Elly-Griffiths/dp/1328577856

This was a particular favorite of mine from this year. For one, Clare Cassidy is an high school English teacher obsessed with a mystery writer, and it’s always nice to see oneself in print. While I am not a woman, and teach in America, not the UK, there was still plenty for me to relate to.

After a colleague is murdered, Clare’s life becomes entangled with the investigation headed by Harbinder Kaur, a detective sergeant who must hide her sexuality from her Sikh, immigrant family. While the novel is told primarily from Clare’s POV—her family and dating life, relationship to the victim, work on R. M. Holland’s short story “The Stranger,” and her diary all play key roles in the mystery—DS Kaur really stole the show for me. She is funny, insightful, and interesting whereas Clare is fairly straight-forward and, at times, stereotypical. It’s no surprise to me that Kaur has garnered her own series. (I just added the second book on Goodreads.)

In some mystery novels, the twists and turns feel predictable, the killer obvious. In others, the details are so well buried that the conclusion seems to come out of nowhere, and the detective seems like only a genius because the author made it so. The Stranger Diaries finds a happy middle ground. I was surprised by the ending, but not in a way that felt altogether satisfying. The killer’s motives felt underdeveloped and I didn’t hit my forehead and announce to my wife, “Of course! I should’ve seen it!” However, it did make sense, and the rest of the novel worked.

The school dynamics, the literary allusions, and the intriguing DS Kaur make The Stranger Diaries an incredibly readable novel that keeps you curious and guessing up to the last page.