Showing posts with label mysteries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mysteries. Show all posts

April 20 - Happy Detective Story Day!

Posted on April 20, 2022

This is an update of my post published on April 20, 2011:



This is the anniversary of the April 20, 1841, publication of what many people cite as the first detective story, Edgar Allan Poe's “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”

Poe created the original expert sleuth, C. Auguste Dupin, who could solve a crime that the police couldn't solve. Dupin was able to distance himself from the gruesome violence of the crime and use keen his observation and reasoning skills to discover clues and figure out the murderer.

Since Poe's introduction of Dupin, the world has met many compelling but fictional private eyes, amateur sleuths, and police detectives. Here are a few: Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple, Dorothy Sayer's Lord Peter Wimsey, Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone, and Tony Hillerman's Jim Chee, plus younger detectives especially meant for younger readers, such as Encyclopedia Brown, Nancy Drew, and Nate the Great.

Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee are (fictional)
Navajo tribal police officers who are
clever detectives.

Many detective stories and novels have been translated to movie or television screens, and original shows have been written with detective work as the main theme. These include Veronica Mars, Psych, Frankie Drake Mysteries, and Magnum, P.I.

Veronica Mars



Detective stories are often murder mysteries, and authors often write them in the “whodunit” style, in which readers or viewers are given all the clues necessary to figure out the puzzle. We don't necessarily have to have the observational skills of Sherlock Holmes or Shawn Spencer from Psych to notice clues—they are usually explicitly called to our attention—but actually putting our gray matter to work to solve the crime is another matter altogether. Agatha Christie, particularly, wrote super clever murder mysteries that are tricky to solve.

Celebrate today by reading or watching a good detective story. Whether you go back to the original, Poe, or dip into a “Golden Age” author like Christie, or opt for a modern take on detective fiction like the latest episode of Magnum, you are sure to enjoy a good detective story!



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September 15: Happy Birthday, Agatha Christie

 Posted on September 15, 2021


This is an update of my post published on September 15, 2010:




Born on this day in 1890 as Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller, Agatha Christie grew up to be the “Queen of Crime.” She wasn't a criminal!!! Instead, she was one of the most popular and prolific mystery writers in the English language. 

(She also wrote other novels, short stories, poems, non-fiction, and plays, including romances under the name Mary Westmacott. But she is super-duper famous for her mysteries - and it's a nice coincidence that her married name sorta kinda rhymes with her best loved genre: Christie's mysteries!)


A prolific writer writes a lot. Christie wrote 80 novels and short story collections (in addition to the plays, poetry, and non-fiction). According to the Agatha Christie website, she is the best-selling author of all time, and one of her plays, The Mousetrap, is the longest-running play in theatrical history. (It only closed because of the Covid-19 pandemic!)

My favorite of her detectives is Hercule Poirot, an eccentric but brilliant Belgian detective who solved crimes by noticing a lot, talking to people a lot, and thinking a whole heck of a lot. Another famous main character is an English spinster / amateur sleuth named Jane Marple.



Celebrate Christie!

Read one of her mysteries, or watch a movie.

A good book to start with is Death in the Clouds or Cards on the Table.

One of the more recent movies is Murder on the Orient Express (2017).

Starting in 2007, many of Christie's books have been adapted into graphic novels (published by Euro Comics India). Other adaptations include video games and an anime series called Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple.






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October 2, 2011 - Great Books Week


and Mystery Series Week


It's great to read wonderful books, and it's fun to read mysteries, because they are like puzzles for us readers. Librarians, booksellers, book clubs, teachers, and authors sometimes start holidays and honorary weeks celebrating books, and this week just happens to be overlapping: Great Books and Mystery Book Series.

In a mystery series, readers get to know and love a cop, a private detective, or an amateur sleuth who solves the mystery at the end. My favorite fictional detective is Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot. He's short and fastidiously fashionable (if a large upward-curling mustache and patent leather shoes are fashionable!); he has retired from the Belgian police force and moved to England to become a celebrated private detective.

Agatha Christie books are written for adults (although I read and loved them as a young teen). Some fictional detectives especially for kids and teens include Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, the Boxcar Children, Nate the Great, and the gang in Scooby-Doo. But there are a lot more! Check out this list from Amazon! 

What makes a book a “Great Book”?

Some schools and universities are organized around reading what is called “Great Books.” Just as there are different ideas about what makes a book a “classic,” there are different ideas about what books should be on a list of “Great Books.” However, most people list books that they believe still have impact in modern times because they speak to great issues and offer great ideas. Some people mention that truly great books are inexhaustible; they can be read again and again, and the reader will still gain more insight into the human condition.

So what makes the list?
(Or, rather, what books make many “Great Books” lists?)

  • Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey
  • The Bible
  • tragedies by Ancient Greeks Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
  • writings by Ancient Greeks Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, and Archimedes
  • writings by Ancient Romans Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Ptolemy
  • writings by early Christians Augustine and Thomas Aquinas
  • writings by Leonardo da Vinci
  • works of Chaucer
  • works of Shakespeare
  • Defoe's Robinson Crusoe
  • Cervantes's Don Quixote
  • works of John Milton
  • Swift's Gulliver's Travels
  • works of Charles Dickens
  • works by philosophers such as Descartes, Machiavelli, Thomas More, Hobbes, Pascal, Locke, Voltaire, Hume, Adam Smith, Kant, Bertrand Russell, Sartre
  • works by scientists such as Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Boole, Freud, Einstein, Planck
  • Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter
  • Austen's Pride and Prejudice
  • Byron's Don Juan
  • essays by Emerson and Thoreau
  • works by Tolstoy
  • works by Mark Twain
  • works by James Joyce
  • plays by George Bernard Shaw

Each list of “Great Books” is going to have a different selection of books, but many will include some or all of these classics from the last 25 centuries. Notice that they are “Western” books – there is presumably a list of Great Books from the Eastern tradition, somewhere—and that they are written for adults.


What about kids' books?

Some people have tried to make lists of great kids' books, including me.  Here is one Amazon list of someone's top 50 kids' books.

His top 10 are:
  • Charlotte's Web
  • The Velveteen Rabbit
  • Where the Wild Things Are
  • His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass, etc.)
  • Haroun and the Sea of Stories
  • The Giver
  • The Thief Lord
  • Inkheart
  • James and the Giant Peach
  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Celebrate books!

Pick up a classic book you've never read before. Check out books from a “Best Of” list. Investigate a new mystery author. Read an old favorite.

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September 15, 2010


Happy Birthday, Agatha Christie!

Born on this day in 1890 as Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller, she grew up to be the “Queen of Crime.” She wasn't a criminal!!! Instead, she was one of the most popular and prolific mystery writers in the English language. (She wrote other novels, short stories, poems, non-fiction, and plays, including romances under the name Mary Westmacott.)

A prolific writer writes a lot. Christie wrote 80 novels and short story collections (in addition to the plays, poetry, and non-fiction). According to the Agatha Christie website, she is the best-selling author of all time, and one of her plays, The Mousetrap, is the longest running play in theatrical history.


My favorite of her detectives is Hercule Poirot, an eccentric but brilliant Belgian detective who solved crimes by noticing a lot, talking to people a lot, and thinking a whole heck of a lot. Another famous main character is an English spinster / amateur sleuth named Jane Marple.

Celebrate Christie!

Read one of her mysteries, or watch a movie.

A good book to start with is Death in the Clouds or Cards on the Table.




Two of the more recent movies are Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Ten Little Indians (1989). You'll notice that these are not very recent at all!

Starting in 2007, many of Christie's books have been adapted into graphic novels (published by Euro Comics India). Other recent adaptations are video games for the PC and Wii and an anime series called Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple.

Want more?

Here is a short, 4-part video biography of Agatha Christie.


Try reading other mysteries. MysteryNet has a kids' section with Solve-It stories. 

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