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Appointment With Agatha: The Agatha Christie Centenary Celebration – Lioness at Large

Appointment With Agatha: The Agatha Christie Centenary Celebration

This is my master update post for a group project to read all of Agatha Christie’s full-length novels in the order of their publication, beginning in October 2020, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the publication of her first mystery novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which introduced the world to Hercule Poirot and his “little grey cells.”  We are reading one Agatha Christie novel per month, accompanied by a monthly “side read” by another Golden Age mystery author (or group of authors), each representing one of Golden Age mystery fiction’s quintessential themes or settings.

 

Agatha Christie’s Novels

October 2020: The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
November 2020: The Secret Adversary (1922)
December 2020: The Murder on the Links (1923)
January 2021: The Man in the Brown Suit (1924)
February 2021: The Secret of Chimneys (1925)
March 2021: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
April 2021: The Big Four (1927)
May 2021: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)
June 2021: The Seven Dials Mystery (1929)
July 2021: The Murder at the Vicarage (1930)
August 2021: The Sittaford Mystery (1931)
September 2021: Peril at End House (1932)
October 2021: Lord Edgware Dies (1933)
November 2021: Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (1934)
December 2021: Murder on the Orient Express (1935)
January 2022: Three-Act Tragedy (1934)

February 2022: Death in the Clouds (1935)
March 2022: The ABC Murders (1936)
April 2022: Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)
May 2022: Cards on the Table (1936)
June 2022: Dumb Witness (1937)
July 2022: Death on the Nile (1937)
August 2022: Appointment with Death (1938)
September 2022: Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (1938) – annual Christmas read, read in December 2022
October 2022: Murder is Easy (Easy to Kill) (1939)
November 2022: And Then There Were None (1939)
December 2022: Sad Cypress (1940)
January 2023:  One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940)
February 2023:  Evil Under the Sun (1941)
March 2023:  N or M? (1941)
April 2023:  The Body in the Library (1942)
May 2023:  Five Little Pigs (1942)
June 2023:  The Moving Finger (1942)
July 2023:  Towards Zero (1944)
August 2023:  Death Comes as the End (1944)
September 2023:  Sparking Cyanide (1945)
October 2023:  The Hollow (1946)
November 2023:  Taken at the Flood (1948)
December 2023:  Crooked House (1949)

 

Agatha Christie’s Short Story Collections

August 2020: Poirot Investigates (1924)
September 2020: The Thirteen Problems (1932)

 

The Side Reads

August 2020: Annie Haynes: The Secret of Greylands
September 2020: Locked Room Mystery – John Dickson Carr: The Hollow Man
October 2020: Locked Room Mystery (redux) – Ellery Queen: The Chinese Orange Mystery
November 2020: Country House Mystery – J. Jefferson Farjeon: Thirteen Guests
December 2020: Christmas Mystery – Georgette Heyer: A Christmas Party
January 2021: Murder by Transport – Martin Edwards (ed.), Various Authors: Blood On The Tracks
February 2021: Political Mystery – Graham Greene: The Third Man
March 2021: English Village Murder – Dorothy L. Sayers: The Nine Tailors / replaced by: Ellis Peters: Fallen into the Pit
April 2021: Mystery with Thriller / Spy Elements – Patricia Wentworth: The Key
May 2021: Set in France – Georges Simenon: Maigret’s Holiday
June 2021: British Library Crime Classics Rerelease – Ellen Wilkinson: The Division Bell Mystery
July 2021: Second Chance Summer: Pick of the Runner-ups (American) – Patricia Highsmith: Strangers on a Train (reread skipped)
August 2021: Second Chance Summer: Pick of the Runner-ups (British) – Martin Edwards (ed.), Various Authors: Resorting to Murder
September 2021: School / Academic Setting – John Le Carré: A Murder of Quality
October 2021: A Ngaio Marsh theatre mystery: Enter a Murderer, Final Curtain, Opening Night, Hand in Glove
November 2021: Free-for-All – Josephine Bell: The Port of London Murders
December 2021: A Snowy Mystery – Cyril Hare: An English Murder (reread skipped)

2022 Side Reads: American Golden Age / Vintage / Classic Noir Mysteries

January: Phoebe Atwood Taylor: The Cape Cod Mystery
February: Chester Himes:
A Rage In Harlem – substituted by The Real Cool Killers
March: Raymond Chandler: The Little Sister
April: Margaret Millar: Vanish in an Instant
May: Dashiell Hammett: The Thin Man – substituted by Ross Macdonald: The Moving Target
June: Erle Stanley Gardner: The Case of the Fiery Fingers
July – December: [No Side Reads]

2023 Side Reads: 1940s Mysteries

Q1: Margery Allingham: Coroner’s Pidgin
Q2: Arthur Upfield: Death of a Swagman
Q3: Georges Simenon

 

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