Agatha Christie - the Gateway Novelist for Tweens, Teens and YAs

surprisedreader1 Acclaimed crime writers such as Sophie Hannah, Val McDermid and many others say that reading Agatha Christie when they were youngsters made them fall in love with mystery fiction. Me too.

In my case, the first Agatha Christie novel I read was Death on the Nile, which plunged me into a grown-up world of passion, sex, jealousy, greed, exotic places and even more exotic characters, and of course, murder. I gasped at the ingenious plot and the incredibly clever twist. I marvelled at the audacity with which the author baffled my expectations and assumptions.

This was the gateway novel which had me hooked and made me crave the deeper, darker, more dangerous and psychotic fixes which other crime novelists continue to provide.

Reading Christie when you are young (the ages at which she is discovered range from 9 to the teens) opens up new worlds. As well as the world of of crime fiction, you get to explore social history, relationships, psychology, morality, within the safe framework demanded by the conventions of this section of the mystery genre.

The aspects of her work which are sometimes derided as outmoded, cosy and bloodless are the very qualities that make it enjoyable and suitable for readers of all ages.

The multi-layered mix in a Christie story offers tightly structured, fiendishly clever plots, as logical and challenging as Sudoku puzzles, crammed with sub-plots and red herrings; clearly delineated characters; historical colour and authenticity; morally satisfying outcomes in which the guilty are made to account for their crimes and justice is done in the names of the innocent.

And even the youngest reader won’t get nightmares (probably).

Class structure, snobbery, social divisions

The English class system is complex, elusive and endlessly fascinating. What better intro to the intricacies of status than the Christie novels of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.

The upper classes are there in the form of dukes, duchesses, sirs, ladies and other titled beings. The middle classes are represented by majors and captains and colonels and doctors and vicars and ladies of manor houses in rural areas.

Their comfortable lives are serviced by working-class armies of cooks, housemaids, parlour-maids, under house parlour-maids, ‘half-witted but amiable’ girls who help out. Everyone knows their place. (The hierarchy and functions of servants actually provide a crucial plot point in Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?)

bodyinlibrary1 As with contemporary writers, the social position of characters is indicated through references to speech and dress — and without our present-day handy shorthand of brand names.

Those attempting to appear of a higher class are rumbled. ‘A well-bred girl would never turn up at a point-to-point in a silk flowered frock,’ we are told in The Body in The Library. Oh dear. It was so much more difficult in those days to get things right.

Closed worlds

Crime fiction works well when it depicts closed worlds in which clashes and rivalries between characters are intensified in the hothouse atmosphere of people living and working in close quarters.

The most famous Christie closed world is, of course, the village, most notably presented through Miss Marple, whose life in St Mary Mead has given her an intimate knowledge of evil and its perpetrators.

Large houses and their inhabitants are also the setting for murder, as are coach trips, cruise ships, hotels, boardinghouses, schools, clubs, archaeological digs, any place which brings people together and which operates within its own particular rules and conventions.

Christie’s closed world of professional detection and law enforcement is surprisingly open to the active involvement of amateur sleuths such as Miss Marple, Poirot and Ariadne Oliver. She provides an entertaining introduction to the fine tradition of the amateur tec.

This tradition continues in the form of private investigators, off-the-wall, intuitive profilers and sleuthing vicars. It co-exists happily with contemporary police procedurals, especially now that the workings of the professionals are laid bare. We’re all in the job now, aren’t we, shouting at the book or screen ‘No evidence, mate!’ or ‘Don’t go there without back-up!’ or ‘Triangulate the cell phone!’

Brain power

In the tradition of Sherlock Holmes, Poirot applies his brain, his ‘little grey cells’, to solve crime.

Both Poirot and Miss Marple are people readers. They notice little inconsistencies in behaviour, they observe behaviour patterns, they apply reason and logic. They are aware of individuals who deviate from the world view which is the norm (that is to say, theirs).

A particular kind of pleasure is experienced when a clue to solving the mystery hinges on accurate observation. Solutions are reached by noticing the significance of which words are emphasised in a sentence, or observing that a picture is ajar and working out why that should be, or realising that meaning is altered when initials are read back to front in a mirror.

The same kind of pleasure is to be gained from the medical mystery series House, or in accompanying Inspector Morse on his investigative journeys. The mixture of deduction and intuition based on observation is deeply satisfying.

Exploration of human weaknesses

Agatha Christie presents heinous crimes with a light touch. The focus is on solving a puzzle. There is little attention paid to the victim (although there is sympathy for their plight and anger at the perpetrator) and there is little exploration of the murderer’s psyche.

This limited approach is strangely comforting, and disarmingly honest. There are no jarring shifts in viewpoint or half-hearted attempts to impose layers of significance.

That is not to say that the books lack awareness of the depths of human depravity, or understanding of the criminal mind.

Poirot warns, ‘Do not allow evil into your heart. It will make a home there’ (Death On The Nile). There is just enough empathy and understanding, I think, of the range and nature of human emotion to balance the intellectual exercise of solving a mystery.

Linguistic texture

There are unexpected delights to be found in Christie’s functional prose. Economical descriptions such as ‘she was a plump woman with a discontented mouth’ and ‘her whole figure had a queer modern angularity that was not, somehow, unattractive’ (The ABC Murders) are surprisingly effective.

A whole milieu is summed up in the reference to a world of ‘shabby chintz and horses and dogs’. A few words, ‘Men didn’t take much notice of her and other girls rather made use of her’ (A Pocketful Of Rye (1953), pinpoint with precision a particular type of personality we can all recognise, the victim with ‘kick me’ emblazoned on her forehead.
The tart observation,’Mr Satterthwaite was in some way a little old-fashioned, so much so that he seldom made fun of his host and hostess until after he had left their house’ (The Mysterious Mr Quin) could come from a weightier work of satire. And I rather like ‘Jerry had an expensive public school education, so he doesn’t recognise Latin when he hears it,’ one of several similar barbs in The Moving Finger.

Moving on

Discovering Agatha Christie might encourage a Young Person to become a lover of stories, a reader or writer of crime fiction, a crossword or puzzle enthusiast, a toxicologist, a law enforcement officer, a detective, a psychologist, a barrister or lawyer, a sociologist. Once you have discovered the joys of being an armchair detective the world is your oyster.
Make sure the oyster’s OK, though — in the Christie oeuvre, 80 people are poisoned through food and other sources.