Agatha Christie - Alternative Titles Quiz

Answer: A Holiday for Murder

Also known as "Murder for Christmas", this is a classic "locked room" mystery. A wealthy but nasty old man, Simeon Lee, is murdered. The family hears the noise - "a crashing of china, the overthrowing of furniture, a series of cracks and bumps", followed by "a horrible high wailing scream that died away in a choke or gurgle".

They rush to Simeon's room but find it locked. When the door is broken down, Simeon Lee is lying in a huge pool of blood with his throat cut. But there is no murderer in the room, no weapon, no key, and no other way to exit the room.

Answer: Thirteen at Dinner

In this novel, as the title suggests, Lord Edgware is murdered. There are witnesses who swear his estranged wife visited him immediately before his death but she has an alibi - she was at a dinner with a dozen witnesses. She couldn't be in two places at once, could she? The inspiration for this novel came after Agatha Christie attended a performance by the well-known American entertainer, Ruth Draper. To say any more would be a spoiler!

Answer: Murder in Three Acts

This is the only novel in which we meet Mr Satterthwaite, although he does appear in 15 short stories, usually in the company of Mr Harley Quin. Poirot and Mr Satterthwaite work together to solve the murders of the Reverend Babbington, Dr Bartholomew Strange and Mrs De Rushbridger.

At the end of the novel, after the case is solved, Mr Satterthwaite turned to Poirot and said "My goodness. I've only just realised it. That rascal, with his poisoned cocktail! Anyone might have drunk it. It might have been me". Ever the egotist, Poirot responded with "There is an even more terrible possibility that you have not considered...it might have been ME!"

Answer: Death in the Air

Another classic "locked room" mystery. The murder takes place in an aeroplane during a flight, which limits the pool of suspects to Hercule Poirot (surely not!), ten passengers and two stewards. The murder takes place in view of a cabin full of passengers but nobody notices!

Answer: Poirot Loses a Client

This novel was also retitled as "Mystery at Littlegreen House" and "Murder at Littlegreen House" in its US reprint editions. One of the unusual features of this book is that, in Chapter 18, Agatha Christie has Hercule Poirot musing on the fact that murderers can often have "delightful personalities" and then names the murderers from four of her previous books. Talk about spoilers!

Answer: The Patriotic Murders

When this book was reprinted in 1953, the American publishers changed the name yet again to "An Overdose of Death". The original title is based on a nursery rhyme and each of the ten chapters in the book corresponds to a line in the rhyme. The story begins with Hercule Poirot investigating the apparent suicide of his dentist.

Answer: Easy to Kill

In the course of this novel, there are murders galore! There are at least seven suspicious deaths which are actually murders - one death by gastroenteritis (actually poisoning), a drowning, a fatal fall, an "accidental" poisoning, one death by septicaemia (deliberate infection), a hit-and-run "accident" and one fatal blow to the head. Luke Fitzwilliam, a retired policeman, is the sleuth who manages to prevent the strangulation of an eighth victim.

Answer: Come and Be Hanged

At the beginning of this novel, Agatha Christie has one of her characters propose the idea that detective stories begin in the wrong place. "They begin with the murder. But the murder is the end. The story begins long before that...with all the causes and events that bring certain people to a certain place at a certain time on a certain day...all converging towards a given spot...zero hour..towards zero".

Answer: There is a Tide...

This novel was written in 1948, just after the end of World War II, and is set in 1946, so in addition to being a murder mystery, it is also an interesting portrayal of what life was like in England in the aftermath of the war. Both the English and the American titles for this novel come from Brutus's speech in Act IV, scene iii, of Shakespeare's play, "Julius Caesar". "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune...".

Answer: Dead Man's Mirror

This book is a collection of four rather lengthy short stories featuring Hercule Poirot. The stories are "Murder in the Mews", "The Incredible Theft", "Dead Man's Mirror", and "Triangle at Rhodes". For reasons unknown, the American publishers not only changed the title, they only published three out of the four stories, omitting "The Incredible Theft".