Poirot vs Miss Marple

a little old lady, sitting back in a corner, whom you wouldn't suspect has a mind like a steel trap. Working out mysteries based on similarities to people in her village and their lives. Awesome.

Yeah, knitters can be very smart people.[sly]

I like Poirot, but he is too OCD even for me. But Suchet is my ideal Poirot, just like Joan Hickson was my ideal Miss Marple.
 
I don't quite buy the idea that living in a little country village gives you some kind of special insight into human nature, which is the basis for Miss Marple's success as a solver of crime.

Although Poirot and Miss Marple both are miles ahead of the Tommy and Tuppence...
 
I agree that Joan Hickson was the definitive Marple, and that elderly ladies are often underrated, but there were just too many murders in her tranquil village or among her acquaintances to be credible. Poirot is intensely irritating, but at least he is a professional that I can believe would solve these crimes.

To be perfectly honest, though, Agatha is far from my favorite mystery writer.
 
She makes hay out of being the underrated elderly lady that no one takes seriously, but she is actually a consulting professional (although not official law enforcement).

And Wentworth is a very good writer.
 
I can't remember if I ever said anything about it in the book thread or not.

It was the ABC Murders, read by Hugh Fraser.

Anyway, I wasn't all that impressed, although I think it had more to do with the bad story than it did with the narrator. Fraser did a pretty good job; it's just that the plot was so stupid.
 
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oh my goodness, yes.

Although, in fairness, I have never read any Tommy and Tuppence--I just don't care for Francesca Annis, who played Tuppence in the dramatizations.

Have you read any of the Harley Quinn stories? You'd have even more trouble buying in to HIS ability to solve crimes, I tell you.[;)]
 
I really think that Christie was a prolific, but not terrific writer. She's pretty overrated, compared to, for example, Dorothy L. Sayers.

But I sometimes really light reading is what is called for. She fulfills that for sure--just don't go looking for actual believability and you'll be fine! [laugh]
 
wonder why no adaptations of her stories ever were filmed. As the idea is so similar to Miss Marple, I guess she beat her to it.
 
by authors of many amateur detectives. Either they have a business where murder comes to them, or they get nosy and seek it out, or they simply end up living in an inexplicable high crime zone in the middle of the peaceful countryside. You begin to wonder why their neighbors don't catch on and move. [;)]

That said, I've never been much of an Agatha Christie fan either. Though not a detective, my favorite "underestimated old lady" is Mrs. Pollifax.
 
And as it just so happens I just saw the movie version with Rosalind Russel and Darrin McGavin (sp?).... The book was much better.
 
But the later books, where it got less tongue-in-cheek, I didn't care for. The ones after the book where she got flogged were just not as good.
 
But I don't remember anything about him.

The Tommy and Tuppence books are just plain silly. These two foolish young people decide to form a Young Adventurer's organization and do "jobs" for people -- and immediately get involved in a top secret case involving national security. And what's even more unbelievable, when the real authorities discover what they're up to, instead of telling them to stop being stupid and go home, they bring them in and encourage them to participate.

I realize they aren't really meant to be anything but light fun, but T&T are just too foolish even to be amusing.
 
Why all detectives would need to be male anyway. And it's great to have an old female protagonist. Usually females are allowed to be in the spotlight only if they're young and sexy and in love.
 
Poirot too encounters murders where ever he goes.

And Miss Marple does't really solve her murders in St. Mary Mead. She travels around England to meet her friends, or people who have asked her help.
 
I love it when old people get to be in the spotlight. Fictionland is full of young, perfectly beautiful sexy teenagers and 20-somethings, but the problems and life situations these characters can be in are limited. It's cool to get to read about characters who have more life behind them, and new kinds of questions and problems. It's even more awesome when the old person is a female and NOT a mean hag.
 
A professional detective who specializes in murder, or a policeman in the Homicide Division, encounters murder as part of the job description. It's the coincidental murders that happen at the resort one happens to be enjoying or the train on which one is riding that lack realism.
 
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