Whodunit

There are very few authors whose name on the cover will draw my attention to a certain novel, let alone actually read it. Some devoted readers have a seemingly endless list of favorite authors whose books hey read obsessively. For me, however, even if I recognize the authors name, I still won't be convinced to read the book. There is of course, one exception, one author whose name alone is enough to get me to read their book. That author is Agatha Christie. Her books may not be considered great works of "literary merit" as the AP exam would say, but they are very entertaining, fun to read, and always surprising. Christie was a genius at disguising her murderers and criminals until the very end, I have yet to correctly guess a single one of her endings. Christies books are filled with eccentric characters and extravagant upper class settings, but beneath the common murder mystery cliches lies a cynicism towards human nature. Christie's best mysteries are ones that see beneath peoples outward personality and reveal the raw emotions that can turn an ordinary person into a killer. Some of her most popular novels, such as Murder on the Orient Express and And Then There Were None both play with the reader's perception that justice, murder, and ultimately Good verses Evil is as simple as black and white. And Then There Were None is set in an isolated mansion on a private island as a mad man slowly murders each of the guests. Yet each of the guests committed murder themselves at one point and were able to escape justice. Beneath the abundant suspense the novel forces the reader to ask the question "Is this justice?" Each of the victims is a killer who escaped justice in the conventional sense, but does it give the murderer the right to kill them? Do any of us have the right to take the law into our own hands? If they are all killers why do we sympathize with them? Some of them seem truly remorseful for their crimes, but is that enough to make up for what they've done? All of these are questions addresses in the novel. Murder on the Orient Express similarly asks questions regarding justice. The victim is a notorious criminal who escaped justice in the U.S. while the murderers are 12 people whose loved ones were harmed do to his past crimes. The number of murders, 12, is an important part of the story. Christies goes to great lengths to emphasize that 12 is the same number of people on a jury. The jury comparison is important in emphasizing the justice motif. Te victim is traditionally a character the reader sympathizes with, while the criminal is the villain. In Murder on the Orient Express Christie makes sure the reader has no sympathy for the victim while allowing the murderers to get away with the crime, and Christie makes sure that the reader wants it that way. One last novel I'd like to spotlight is A Murder is Announced, the novel is particularly memorable to me for two reasons. One is that it was this years fall drama and I was in it. The other is that the murderer breaks every mold of stereotypical criminals, the crime takes place in a seemingly peaceful English village, but it soon becomes clear that everyone has a dark secret that they will do anything to keep hidden. The ending is a testament both to Christies genius plotting, as well as her ability to understand that beneath every kind exterior lies a cold blooded killer just waiting for the proper motive to come out.