He never tells whodunit

Press, 27 November 1982, Page 16

He never tells whodunit

The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie. By Charles Osborne. Collins, 1982. 256 pp. Illustrations. $26.95.

(Reviewed by

Ken Strongman)

“Life and Crimes" is an unusual biography. It portrays the life of the first lady of crime, plot by plot. Osborne lists them all, page after page, year after year, Poirot after Marples. Anyone with even a passing intimacy with Agatha Christie’s type of crime fiction will know that the plot is everything, all that matters is whodunit? In spite of what her supporters aver, characterisation is slight and social comment is slighter.. So, Osborne set himself an awkward task — to describe all of the plots without giving any of the games away. Very cleverly, he succeeds. This one feature makes the first third of the book fascinating reading (well, almost). It is like watching a high wire artist. But Osborne does not fall, so by about page 100 becomes tedious. By then, one knows that he has a foolproof technique and that Miss Christie’s plots are safe. Edmund Wilson, in a criticism of Agatha Christie’s work, once asked the question “Who cares who killed Roger Ackroyd?” Osborne’s book prompts the

Sestion: Who wants to read all of Agatha ristie’s plots without knowing who killed whom in any of them? It is a book to read when you don’t want to read her books. . For those who equate scholarship with pedantry, “Life and Crimes” has the appearance of a scholarly work. For example, Osborne is meticulous in mentioning the American title of each book when it differs from the English. Desperate to ring interest from the neck of the book, this does .at least allow speculation about the differences between the two countries which made the Americans refer to Ten Little Indians rather than Ten Little Niggers, thus making a complete nonsense of the title. Osborne would be very useful to have around when writing Christmas cards. He would forget no-one. His life must be one long list. In “Life and Crimes” he lists the main actors who have appeared in all of the dramatisations of Miss Christie’s works. He lists all of her novels and short stories, and poetry. The book has a full index, which can only be described as a list of the lists. Whatever one’s opinion of Miss Christie’s work and of Mr Osborne’s annotated lists, one cannot but help admire the productivity in both cases. Miss Christie sometimes produced four books in a year and when the muse was on her could knock one out in three weeks. It is a fair bet that it will have taken Osborne longer to summarise some of her plots than it took the author to write the books.