Two Short Stories by Agatha Christie

I’ve been rediscovering, or actually discovering, the short stories written by Agatha Christie. Years ago, I read only a couple of collections of her stories. I focused on her novels – Hercule Poirot, Miss Jane Marple, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. I’ll confess to being partial to Monsieur Poirot and his famous mustaches, but I generally liked all of her novels. 

A few weeks ago, when a notice showed up (Amazon and its algorithm own me) about a short story by Christie entitled “The Map,” it contained no reference to any of her famous detectives. In fact, it made no reference to the word “detective” at all. The description did suggest that it might be something of a ghost story. As it turned out, it wasn’t only a ghost story; it was downright borderline horror.

 

And now I’m hooked. 

 

Agatha Christie

The Golden Ball is a story about two people who unexpectedly become an engaged couple. A young man is lectured by his grandfather about proper attendance at work, and he finds himself outside of work on a busy London street. Driving by is a young socialite, engaged to a duke, no less, and she promptly invites him into her car, they decide they should get married, and off they go to the countryside to find an appropriate home. They do, but it is there that the surprises begin, and there are more than one. It’s rather madcap, reads like something light set in the late 1920s or early 1930s, and it’s great fun.

 

The Listerdale Mystery also concerns a house. A mother and her two adult children are formerly well-to-do gentr but brought financially low by the father’s unwise investment and borrowing decisions. They live in a cramped and rather shabby flat they can barely afford. The mother is worried that her son is becoming too interested in the nearby tobacconist’s daughter. The daughter is bewailing the interest of a well-to-do young man who wants to call upon her, but to see her living conditions would destroy any interest he might have. And then, unexpectedly, a fashionable property in Westminster in London becomes available at a ridiculously low rent, one even this down-at-heels family can afford. But gift horses are rarely what they seem.

 

Both stories are entertaining. They’re something of period pieces, but they show dimensions of Christie’s writing that are as entertaining as they are unexpected. 

 

Related:

 

“The Map” – a Ghost Story by Agatha Christie.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Willa Cather’s Pioneering Women – Sarah Reardon at First Things Magazine.

 

The House Does Not Need You – Nic Rowan at The Lamp on Ray Bradbury and AI.

 

Mysterious Shapes Hidden Beneath the Amazon Canopy Reveal a Sprawling Ancient Civilization Much Bigger Than Researchers Expected – Sarah Kuta at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

The Ring and a Junction on Blackfriars Road – A London Inheritance.

 

The Gables of Elsinor– Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.