Homage to the Queen of Mystery

HANK 

PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Here’s a tiny story about how I discovered one of my favorite books ever, and a  new favorite author.

I was in an airport (remember airports?) and realized, with a stomach-churning panic that only a reader knows,  that  I didn’t have a book to read for the flight.  I had read more of my book than I planned in the hotel the night before and still figured I’d be fine for the flight, but then—the plane had no power outlets. Ah.  I HAD to find a book.

I high-tailed it to the airport bookstore. I had 15 minutes.  I looked at all the books. Read it read it read it don’t care forget about it no no no. There was nothing. And then I saw A Talent For Murder by Andrew Wilson.

It had a gorgeous cover, so I picked it up, and it said something about “Where was Agatha Christie during the two weeks she was missing?”

I thought: one hundred percent yes.

And Reds and readers, I adored it.   And I ordered ever book he’s ever written, and now his books are an instant buy. He is a fabulous writer. A terrific storyteller.  If you haven’t read his books, please do . Start the way I did, with A TALENT FOR MURDER. Or his new book!

And now, hurray, here is Andrew Wilson. We have never met, but I’d adore to tell him what a complete fan I am.

The Queen of Mystery

Andrew Wilson

When I was twelve my English teacher at my school in the north of England asked his pupils to write a ‘novel’.  He wanted each of us to see if we could write not a real novel, of course, but an extended piece of writing — and, after four weeks’ work, I handed in a 46-page story called The German Mystery, an homage to Agatha Christie. This childish effort was inspired by two of Christie’s masterpieces: Death on the Nile and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. I can still remember the relish with which I devoured these two books, my pulse racing, my jaw dropping as I raced my way through to the final pages.

Perhaps more than any other book The Murder of Roger Ackroyd  was responsible for sowing the seeds of my passion for crime fiction. Christie — the ‘mistress of misdirection’ was particularly adept at narrative and literary ellipsis, cleverly leaving out vital pieces of information.  Like the narrator of this groundbreaking novel the author was the supreme master of the ‘judicious use of words’. Her style was seemingly simple, but danger, violence and subterfuge lurk behind and within the walls of her straightforward sentences. Murder is hiding in the spaces between the words. 

Agatha — like her famous detectives turned global icons, Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple — was fascinated by the complexity of human psychology. ‘It’s psychology that interests you, isn’t it?’  a character says to Poirot in the introduction to one of Christie’s masterpieces, Five Little Pigs. Christie’s 80-plus novels explore every aspect of motivation and behaviour — ‘it is the eyes of the mind with which one really sees,’ Poirot observes in the same novel. 

Christie strips away the patina of pretence to show us the murky reality of human nature. She was fond of the saying, ‘Old sins cast long shadows,’ and she explores the ways in which guilt shapes and mutates the spirit. She pushes the boundaries of the genre, and although she is often accused of being ‘cosy’ many her novels are anything but. Despite her enormous success, Christie never took herself that seriously. When the Queen of England bestowed on Christie the Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1956, Agatha wrote to her agent, ‘One up to the low-brows!!’

Christie saw herself first and foremost as an entertainer. And she has entertained –— and continues to entertain — millions of loyal readers around the world: she is the bestselling novelist of all time (it’s estimated she has sold more than two billion copies) and she has been translated in 103 territories.    

In 2012 when I moved to Devon, the county where Agatha herself was born, one of the first things I did was visit her holiday home, Greenway, which contains many of her possessions, including paintings, furniture and books from her parents’ house, Ashfield in Torquay. I found the experience inspiring. A couple of years later, while on a train, I asked myself whether it would be possible to cast the Queen of Crime as a fictional sleuth. And so my series of novels was born.

HANK: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd! Death on the Nile! Standing ovation. Go out, right this very second, and discover Andrew Wilson. Yes, I am gushing, but hey. That’s why we’re here.  But first let me ask: What’s your favorite Agatha Christie book? Ackroyd? Styles?  Orient Express? A Tommy and Tuppence? Marple or Poirot?  Why?

A TALENT FOR MURDER

Agatha Christie, in London to visit her literary agent, is boarding a train, preoccupied with the devastating knowledge that her husband is having an affair. She feels a light touch on her back, causing her to lose her balance, then a sense of someone pulling her to safety from the rush of the incoming train. So begins a terrifying sequence of events—for her rescuer is no guardian angel, rather he is a blackmailer of the most insidious, manipulative kind.

“You, Mrs. Christie, are going to commit a murder. But, before then, you are going to disappear.”

Writing about murder is a far cry from committing a crime, and Agatha must use every ounce of her cleverness and resourcefulness to thwart an adversary determined to exploit her expertise and knowledge about the act of murder to kill on his behalf.

In A Talent for Murder, Andrew Wilson ingeniously explores Agatha Christie’s odd ten-day disappearance in 1926 and weaves an utterly compelling and convincing story around this still unsolved mystery involving the world’s bestselling novelist.

AND THE NEW BOOK!

Bestselling novelist and part-time undercover sleuth Agatha Christie is looking forward to a bit of well-deserved rest and relaxation when her longtime friend John Davison pleads with her to help him protect a retired British agent turned hotelier who has been receiving threatening letters.

Together they travel to Dallach Lodge, a beautiful estate on Scotland’s picturesque Isle of Skye. There they insert themselves among the hotel’s illustrious guests, including members of the owner’s family, a leading lady of the theater, a brilliant botanist, a local doctor, and two sisters who coauthor romance novels. After a pleasant first evening, Agatha thinks it unlikely that any of them are capable of evil, much less murder. But early the next morning, the sound of a gunshot rings out and the hotel owner is found dead in the arms of his nephew. At first, it appears to be a simple hunting accident, but as Agatha digs deeper, she discovers that each and every one of the residents has a reason for wanting the late proprietor dead.

Andrew Wilson is an award-winning author and journalist. His first book 'Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith' was shortlisted for the Whitbread biography prize (2003) and won an Edgar Allan Poe award for biography in 2004 and a LAMBDA Literary Award in 2003. His journalism has appeared in a wide range of newspapers and magazines including the Sunday Times, the Observer, the Daily Mail, the Evening Standard, the Independent, Tatler, the Smithsonian and the Washington Post. 

Andrew is the new tutor on Faber Academy’s online crime writing course and he is also a mentor on the Gold Dust creative writing scheme.


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PS: Whoo hoo! THE MURDER LIST  is now a Macavity Nominee! I am so thrilled--and what amazing company:

Best Mystery Novel 
Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha (Ecco)
This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger (Atria)
Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman (Wm. Morrow)
The Chain by Adrian McKinty (Mulholland)
The Murder List by Hank Philippi Ryan (Forge)
Sarah Jane by James Sallis (Soho Crime)