If I were grilled about Agatha Christie

Now, Mrs.--erm--

Sawatdeeka. Just call me Sawatdeeka.

Okay. Now, Sawatdeeka (however you pronounce that), how long have you known the subject?

My mom introduced me to Agatha Christie mysteries when I was a young woman, thirty years ago. She recommended their "cozy" British atmosphere more than the mystery plot. So I read a number of Christie's stories, including popular ones like Murder on the Orient Express.

What was your experience with Dame Agatha Christie?

Well, I was always a bit impatient to get the mystery unraveled, and not invested in the atmosphere or the characters. I did enjoy And Then There Were None. Eight people invited to an island getting killed off one by one--that's a great concept for a story, and I think Christie executed it well.

She almost always managed to surprise me with the identity of the murderer. I didn't know how she did that, but I think I have a better idea now. I've assumed these were well-written mysteries, given their popularity and the fact that my mom read them. However, I'm not so sure lately, since I've gotten back into them.

How did you first get reacquainted?

A few years ago, Chirp Books was offering audio versions of Murder on the Links and Murder on the Orient Express together at a deep discount. I had a mixed experience coming back to Christie. The narration by actors from Downton Abbey was outstanding. But in spite of the splendid readings, the stories seemed too dense and a little dry for audio. I thought Murder on the Links was a throwaway title, that it must have been unpopular, which is why it was on clearance, so to speak. Orient Express was okay. I vaguely remembered getting into it, decades ago. More recently, I've grabbed a couple Kindle titles that were on sale.

How do you find the mysteries now?

[Sawatdeeka clears her throat nervously and looks away for a moment.] I find Christie to be a mediocre writer, maybe an underachiever, in a rush to publication. Three Act Tragedy (originally Murder in Three Acts), a recently purchased Kindle deal, was a mess. Besides the lifeless title--and why publishers opted for a duller title later on is beyond me--there are unresolved plot threads, a lame stunt by Poirot, bland characters, and a dragging story. Poirot didn't really even matter this time. Instead, a yawner of a vaguely drawn character, Mr. Satterthwaite, and his actor buddy go around questioning suspects. They took forever to get around to their investigation and pick up the pace in this uneven tale. To sum up: it was sloppy. Online research said that this was a serial novel. She should have picked up the magazine and read each of her latest installments before continuing.

In this case, I decided I'd think hard about the details and solve the mystery. And I did predict a couple of key parts of her resolution, despite being distracted by a couple of admittedly clever red herrings. I leveraged my experience of having read her in the past, picking up tricks such as not dismissing the possibility a main character, someone in the foreground, did the evil deed. The author was also over the top with a character's profile, so I could apply that to one of her riddles. And in the heart of her story, she dropped a stunning hint to which she never returned.

Right now I'm reading a Miss Marple story, A Pocket Full of Rye. While far more charming and cohesive than Three Act Tragedy, one can see that Christie needs an editor to rid her of the self-conscious, overwritten phrases. To invent an example—phrases such as "ran hastily" can be both meaningless and distracting. She's tough on her female characters, not restraining her pen to describe a woman as unattractive and not very bright. I suppose there are unflattering portrayals of men in the books, too. So far, the setting is vivid, the characters are somewhat interesting, the plot more intriguing than in the last book, and Inspector Neele is a gem.

Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot?

I'm not sure. I haven't read enough of them lately to decide. But I will tell you that conceited Poirot in Three Act Tragedy grated enough that one could wish he'd quaffed the poisoned drink early in the story. Miss Marple in Pocket Full of Rye has so far been appealing and clever.

Anything else to add about this popular mystery writer?

For an author writing in the thirties, pre-World War Two, and in a world populated by readers who remembered the 1880s, Christie's voice is modern and accessible to today's readers. She even throws in some off-color "adult" comments from her characters that would have me dating her books in the '60s or '70s if I didn't know better. Her longevity tells me how much Western culture and popular writing had evolved by the time Christie was dropping her detective stories for eager audiences. In two decades, we'd given up our floor-length dresses and quaint, more reserved stories in exchange for shorts, sleeveless tops, and the latest beach read.

Part of her success, perhaps, was her productivity, her ability to crank out the books. If she'd only come out with five of them, my guess is that they wouldn't have gained as much traction. But her stories came out regularly and perhaps they were everywhere, flooding the market. Eventually, with 66 detective novels on the shelves, the skeptic would stop resisting and pick up a title or two.

Through Poirot's dissection of a character's cold-hearted murder in her 1934 Three Act Tragedy, Christie betrayed a key to her plot twists, an insight as to how she engineers the story so that the murderer ends up being a character you never would have suspected. So I'm on to you, Dame Agatha Christie. [Sawatdeeka gives a nervous cackle.]

Christie's novels are low-key and slow-paced enough to read at night before I fade out. I have found that if I wake up in the wee hours and fall asleep in their scenes once more, I drop into a bizarre, jumbled world where I ride trains, recognize the murderer, and interact in Agatha Christie's worlds. Now that's cozy.