The A.B.C. Murders

The A.B.C. Murders
Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition
Author(s)	Agatha Christie
Translator	Greg Messer
Cover artist	Not known
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre(s)	Crime novel
Publisher	Collins Crime Club
Publication date	January 6, 1936
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	256 pp (first edition, hardcover)
ISBN	NA
Preceded by	Death in the Clouds
Followed by	Murder in Mesopotamia

The A.B.C. Murders is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on January 6, 1936 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company on February 14 of the same year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.00.

The book features the characters of Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings and Chief Inspector Japp. The form of the novel is unusual, combining first and third-person narrative. Christie had previously experimented with this approach (famously pioneered by Charles Dickens in Bleak House), in her novel The Man in the Brown Suit. What is unusual in The A.B.C. Murders is that the third-person narrative is supposedly reconstructed by the first-person narrator, Hastings. This approach shows Christie's commitment to experimenting with point of view, famously exemplified by The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Summary

When an unknown killer nicknamed ABC makes veiled threats through typewritten letters, Poirot takes the matter in his own hands, with help of his old friends Hastings & Japp. However, ABC succeeds in killing three innocent and totally unrelated people, effectively challenging Poirot's "little grey cells". He plants opened ABC railway guides showing the murder location. Poirot takes an unconventional approach by forming a Legion of relatives of the deceased and asking them for help.

Initially, the relatives are reluctant, but join in soon. In a seemingly unconnected story, a travelling salesman named Alexander Bonaparte Cust has travelled to all the murder locations on the day the crimes occurred. Cust served in military, where he got a blow on his head. He is prone to blackouts due to it, along with headache and epileptic attacks. Could this seemingly innocent stranger be the eponymous killer?

Characters in surname alphabetical order

1. ABC - An unknown cold blooded serial killer and Poirot's nemesis in this novel. He kills his victims in alphabetical order and leaves an ABC railway guide depicting the scene of crime as his calling card.
2. Alice Ascher - ABC's first victim, an old woman running a tobacco shop in Andover. A divorced woman with no children.
3. Franz Ascher - Alice's alcoholic husband and a prime suspect of Alice's murder. He is more terrified of her and may not be the killer.
4. Elizabeth "Betty" Barnard - ABC's second victim, a young, flirtatious part-time waitress in Bexhill.
5. Megan Barnard - Betty's elder, sensible and comparatively down to earth sister. She disapproves of Betty's ways but wishes well for her and Donald. It is implied that she has feelings for Donald.
6. Milly Bigley - A co-worker of Betty. Milly is a girl and a plain looking one at that, two things that make her an eyesore in Betty's eyes.
7. Sir Carmichael Clarke - ABC's third victim, a rich old man in Churston. Sir Carmichael is a childless man married to a cancer stricken wife.
8. Lady Charlotte Clarke - The widow of Carmichael. She is herself dying due to cancer and kept on various drugs. Her condition has made her delusional and irritated. However, she provides a vital clue to Poirot about the case.
9. Franklin Clarke - Carmichael's younger brother and immediate successor.
10. Inspector Crome - An Inspector assigned Betty's murder case. He has a low opinion of Poirot.
11. Alexander Bonaparte Cust - A travelling salesman with a pompous name. He sells stockings for a living and is an epileptic. He fought in the war, where he received a blow on head, making him prone to blackouts and severe headaches. His path continuously crosses with ABC's.
12. Roger Emmanuel Downs - A schoolteacher present at the cinema in Doncaster. Although he was clearly the logical victim, ABC killed George instead. He sat only two seats away from George and realised that George was murdered.
13. Mary Drower - The niece of Alice. She works in a rich household and has Alice as her only relative.
14. George Earlsfield - ABC's fourth victim at a cinema in Doncaster. He was a barber, mistakenly killed by ABC.
15. Donald Fraser - Betty's would be fiancee. He is a temperamental person and the prime suspect for Betty's murder.
16. Thora Grey - Carmichael's young assistant. She regards him as a father figure. It is implied that she has feelings for Franklin.
17. Michael Hartigan - An old friend of Cust and an acquaintance of his landlady.
18. Captain Arthur Hastings - Poirot's old friend and companion on the case. An impatient man, whose lack of imagination is often playfully ridiculed by Poirot.
19. Detective Chief Inspector James Japp - Another old friend of Hercule Poirot, who is assigned the case.
20. Lily Marbury - The secretary of Cust's landlady.
21. Hercule Poirot - A renowned Belgian detective famous for solving cases using his "little grey cells".
22. Doctor Thompson - He tries to make a psychological profile of ABC.

Plot

The novel chronicles the case from Hastings point of view, after which the events in life of Cust are described. When Poirot is unable to stop ABC from striking thrice, he is rudely challenged. But he is more perplexed about ABC sending his letters to Poirot instead of Scotland Yard or a local newspaper. Alongwith his old friends Col. Arthur Hastings and Chief Inspector Japp, a Dr. Thomson and an Inspector Crome also join Poirot. While Thomson tries to profile ABC, Crome is doubtful about Poirot's abilities.

The Legion members are also doubtful of Poirot's plans regarding them, but slowly join when Franklin Clarke shows eagerness and faith in Poirot. Lady Clarke too gives an unexpected clue: she saw Thora talking to a shabby stranger the day Carmichael died. After piecing the clues together, Poirot realizes that ABC masquerades as a travelling stocking salesman. All the people gather at the site of St Leger in Doncaster, where ABC is supposed to strike.

Poirot advises the people to scour various areas of Doncaster in hopes of nabbing ABC. But ABC strikes in a cinema hall, killing George instead. Nobody knows about Cust yet, or the fact that he was present in the hall. Cust slips out of the hall unnoticed, and is revealed to have a blackout. When he reaches his hotel, he is horrified to find blood on his sleeve and a knife in his pocket, about which he remembers nothing. Terrified, he conceals the evidence and tries to flee. However, when Michael mentions Lily about seeing Cust in Doncaster, Crome is tipped off.

Cust escapes narrowly, but later surrenders voluntarily. On the basis of the typewriter in his apartment, the Doncaster murder weapon, the ABC guides and the stockings found in his apartment, Cust is arrested. But he has an intriguing story to tell. He explains that the typewriter, the ABC guides and the stockings were given to him by a reputed firm that hired him as a stocking salesman. Crome is skeptical when the firm denies knowing him and the appointment letter is found to be typed on the same typewriter.

Poirot is further perplexed, since Cust doesn't remember killing anybody or sending letters to him. Poirot is convinced that something is wrong as well. After some pondering(and a backhanded compliment to Hastings), Poirot gathers the Legion. He explains that ABC is not a maniacal serial killer, but a perfectly sane man who is smart, handsome and cruel enough to kill innocent people to pass one murder as a part of serial killings and frame Cust.

Poirot also explains that ABC hates foreigners, which is one of the reasons why he sent the letters to Poirot. He also points out that Sir Carmichael's murder would have been prevented if ABC had not misspelled Poirot's address. Hastings exclaims that "The letter was meant to go astray!", upon which Poirot explains that this seemingly simple explanation was correct, as a letter sent to Poirot could easily go astray, while that sent to the police won't. This was another reason why ABC sent the letters to Poirot.

Poirot pinpoints and methodically exonerates all the subjects who didn't have motive, opportunity or brains to carry out the plan. He singles out Franklin as the real ABC. Poirot explains that after Lady Clarke's death, Carmichael might have married Thora and fathered their children. Since this meant loss of money for Franklin, he decided to kill Carmichael before Lady Clarke died. After learning Cust's full name when Franklin once saw him in a bar, Franklin thought up ABC.

In a pre-planned way, he disguised himself as the stocking firm and hired Cust. He carried out the murders, all the while seeing to it that Cust would implicate himself. After Carmichael, he killed George to throw the scent off him. Franklin laughs off the "theory", but Poirot confronts him with proofs. After Poirot mentions that Franklin's fingerprint was found on one of the keys of Cust's typewriter, Franklin tries to commit suicide. However, Poirot has already surmised this and emptied his revolver. Based on this, Franklin is arrested. Poirot matches up Donald and Megan.

In the epilogue, Cust is released and offered a hefty sum to publish the story. Poirot gives him some advice to increase his profits on this, besides hinting that Cust really needs new glasses if he wants to get rid of the headaches. Hastings is stunned to learn that Poirot bluffed about the "fingerprint on the typewriter", and Poirot joyfully comments that they should go on a hunting trip, just as Hastings intended to do earlier in the novel.

Literary significance and reception

The Times Literary Supplement of January 11, 1936 concluded with a note of admiration for the plot that, "If Mrs. Christie ever deserts fiction for crime, she will be very dangerous: no one but Poirot will catch her."

Isaac Anderson in The New York Times Book Review of February 16, 1936 finished his review by stating, "This story is a baffler of the first water, written in Agatha Christie's best manner. It seems to us the very best things she has done, not even excepting Roger Ackroyd.

In The Observer's issue of January 5, 1936, "Torquemada" (Edward Powys Mathers) said, "Ingenuity...is a mild term for Mrs. Christie's gift. In The A.B.C. Murders, rightly chosen by the [crime] club as its book of the month, she has quite altered her method of attack upon the reader, and yet the truth behind this fantastic series of killings is as fairly elusive as any previous truth which Poirot has had to capture for us. The reader adopts two quite different mental attitudes as he reads. At first, and for a great many pages, he is asking himself: "Is Agatha Christie going to let me down? Does she think she can give us this kind of tale as a detective story and get away with it?" Then the conviction comes to him that he has been wronging the authoress, and that he alone is beginning to see through her artifice. In the last chapter he finds, because brilliant circus work with a troop of red horses and one dark herring has diverted his attention from a calm consideration of motive, he has not been wronging, but merely wrong. It is noticeable, by the way, that characters break off at intervals to tell us that we have to do with "a homicidal murderer." We are ready to take this for granted until Mrs. Christie (I wouldn't put it past her) gives us one who isn't."

E. R. Punshon reviewed the novel in the February 6, 1936 issue of The Guardian when he said, "Some readers are drawn to the detective novel by the sheer interest of watching and perhaps anticipating the logical development of a given theme, others take their pleasure in following the swift succession of events in an exciting story, and yet others find themselves chiefly interested in the psychological reactions caused by crime impinging upon the routine of ordinary life. Skilful and happy is that author who can weave into a unity this triple thread. In Mrs. Agatha Christie's new book…the task is attempted with success." He went on to say, "In the second chapter, Mrs. Christie shows us what seems to be the maniac himself. But the wise reader, remembering other tales of Mrs. Christie's, will murmur to himself 'I trust her not; odds on she is fooling me,' and so will continue to a climax it is not 'odds on' but a dead cert he will not have guessed. To an easy and attractive style and an adequate if not very profound sense of character Mrs. Christie adds an extreme and astonishing ingenuity, nor does it very greatly matter that it is quite impossible to accept the groundwork of her tale or to suppose that any stalking-horse would behave so invariably so exactly as required. As at Bexhill, a hitch would always occur. In the smooth and apparently effortless perfection with which she achieves her ends Mrs. Christie reminds one of Noël Coward; she might, indeed, in that respect be called the Noël Coward of the detective novel."

An unnamed reviewer in the Daily Mirror of January 16, 1936 said, "I'm thanking heaven I've got a name that begins with a letter near the end of the alphabet! That's just in case some imitative soul uses this book as a text book for some nice little series of murders." They summed up, "It's Agatha Christie at her best."

Robert Barnard: "A classic, still fresh story, beautifully worked out. It differs from the usual pattern in that we seem to be involved in a chase: the series of murders appears to be the work of a maniac. In fact the solution reasserts the classic pattern of a closed circle of suspects, with a logical, well-motivated murder plan. The English detective story cannot embrace the irrational, it seems. A total success – but thank God she didn't try taking it through to Z."

References to other works

In chapter one Poirot alludes to a situation in the 1935 novel, Three Act Tragedy. Similarly, in the same chapter, Poirot mentions his failed attempt of retirement to grow vegetable marrows as depicted in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

In chapter three of the novel, Poirot lays out the plot of what he considers a perfect crime, a crime so challenging that 'even he' would find it hard to solve. This exact murder — where someone is murdered by one of four people playing bridge in the same room with him — is the subject of Christie's Cards on the Table, which was published later in the same year.

In chapter nineteen, Poirot reflects over his first case on England, where he "brought together two people who loved one another by the simple method of having one of them arrested for murder." This is a reference to the novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and the lovers mentioned are John and Mary Cavendish.

References in other works

The plot of The ABC Murders is mentioned by Detective Inspector John Appleby in Michael Innes′ novel Appleby′s End (1945), and in the first story in volume 39 of the manga Detective Conan (chapters 393-397), which was inspired by the novel.

Film, TV and other adaptations

The first adaptation of the novel was the 1965 film The Alphabet Murders with Tony Randall as Hercule Poirot.

Agatha Christie's Poirot

The novel was adapted in 1992 for the television series Agatha Christie's Poirot with David Suchet playing the role of Hercule Poirot. The adaptation remains faithful to the novel, with some minor changes and characters omitted. In the end the murderer tries to escape while in the novel, he tries to commit suicide. The cast included:

• Hugh Fraser as Captain Hastings
• Philip Jackson as Chief Inspector Japp
• Donald Sumpter as Alexander Bonaparte Cust
• Donald Douglas as Franklin Clarke
• Nicholas Farrell as Donald Fraser
• Pippa Guard as Megan Barnard

Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple

A four-part episode of the anime Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple is based on the book.

Agatha Christie's The ABC Murders video game

Main article: Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders

In 2009, Dreamcatcher Interactive released a video game version of the novel for the Nintendo DS. The game has players control Captain Hastings and must solve the mystery by inspecting crime scenes and questioning suspects. In order to appeal to players familiar with the original story, the game also offers the option to play with a different murderer, which results in different clues and testimony throughout the entire game. The game received mediocre reviews, but was commended for its faithful recreation of the source material.

Publication history

• 1936, Collins Crime Club (London), January 6, 1936, Hardcover, 256 pp
• 1936, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), February 14, 1936, Hardcover, 306 pp
• 1941, Pocket Books (New York), Paperback, (Pocket number 88)
• 1948, Penguin Books, Paperback, (Penguin number 683), 224 pp
• 1958, Pan Books, Paperback (Great Pan 95), 191 pp
• 1962, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), Paperback, 192 pp
• 1976, Greenway edition of collected works (William Collins), Hardcover, 251 pp, ISBN 0-00-231014-7
• 1978, Greenway edition of collected works (Dodd Mead), Hardcover, 251 pp
• 1979, Pan Books, Paperback, 191 pp
• 1980, Collins Crime Club (London), Golden Jubilee of Crime Club with introduction by Julian Symons, Hardcover, 224 pp, ISBN 0-00-231323-5
• 1980, Ulverscroft Large-print edition, Hardback, ISBN 0-70-890590-0
• 2006, Poirot Facsimile Edition (Facsimile of 1936 UK First Edition), HarperCollins, September 4, 2006, Hardcover ISBN 0-00-723443-0

The first true publication of The A.B.C. Murders occurred in the US with an abridged version appearing in the November 1935 (Volume XCIX, Number 5) issue of Cosmopolitan magazine with illustrations by Frederic Mizen.

The UK serialisation was in sixteen parts in the Daily Express from Monday, November 28 to Thursday December 12, 1935. All of the instalments carried an illustration by Steven Spurrier. This version did not contain any chapter divisions and totally omitted the foreword as well as chapters twenty-six, thirty-two and thirty-five. In addition most of chapters seven and twenty were missing. Along with other abridgements throughout the novel, this serialisation omitted almost forty percent of the text that appeared in the published novel.

International titles

• Dutch: ABC-Mysterie (ABC-Mystery)
• French: A.B.C. contre Poirot (A.B.C. versus Poirot)
• German: Die Morde des Herrn ABC (The murders of Mr. ABC)
• Hungarian: Poirot és az ABC (Poirot and the Alphabet), Az ABC-gyilkosságok (The A.B.C. Murders)
• Italian: La serie infernale (The Hellish Series)
• Russian: Убийство по алфавиту (=Ubiystvo po alfavitu, The Alphabet Murder), Убийства по алфавиту (=Ubiystva po alfavitu, The Alphabet Murders)
• Spanish: El Misterio de la Guía de Ferrocarriles (The Railway Guide Mystery)
• Romanian: Ucigaşul ABC (The ABC Killer)

External links

• The ABC Murders at the official Agatha Christie website
• The Alphabet Murders (1965) at the Internet Movie Database
• The ABC Murders (1992) at the Internet Movie Database