The ABC Murders: Agatha Christie’s Poirot Novel of an Alphabetical Serial Killer and a Railway Guide
An elderly woman is murdered in her small tobacco shop in the quiet town of Andover. An ABC railway guide lies at the scene, and anonymous letters addressed to Hercule Poirot put him on his guard. Then the second murder takes place, in Bexhill: a young waitress called Betty Barnard.
Author: Agatha Christie (1890–1976)
Title: The ABC Murders (1936)
Format: English paperback (HarperCollins), 288 pages
Scope: Hercule Poirot novel
Amazon: www.amazon.es/dp/0007527535 (ASIN 0007527535)
A Killer Who Follows the Alphabet
Everything suggests a madman, a serial killer guided by alphabetical order with no motive at all. There is no link between the victims, except that a copy of the ABC railway guide appears at every crime scene. Without a motive it is hard to prevent the murders that follow, and both the police and Poirot are baffled. The killer seems to want publicity and to make himself known to the press.
A Legion of Helpers
The relatives and friends of the victims form a kind of legion and join Poirot in his inquiries. Everything seems to point to a lonely man called Cust, whom Poirot questions once he is in custody. But Poirot sees that on one occasion Cust’s alibi places him away from the crime, and his profile does not match the person Poirot is looking for. The prisoner seems to be innocent, and Poirot needs the truth. He goes back over the main scenes of the crimes and tries to work out what really happened.
Hastings Returns
The story is narrated by Captain Hastings, back in England for a visit from his ranch in Argentina, and his presence gives the book a warm, familiar tone. Christie also includes chapters "not from Captain Hastings’ personal narrative", which follow the mysterious Alexander Bonaparte Cust as he travels around England. This mix of first-person and third-person narration was unusual for her, and it helps build the tension as the reader watches events from two sides.
The ABC Railway Guide
The ABC of the title was a real publication: an alphabetical railway timetable that listed every station in Britain with its train times, something most households would have owned in the 1930s. Leaving it at each crime scene is a chilling touch, because it turns the most ordinary object into a calling card. The killer’s taunting letters to Poirot, announcing the next town and date, give the novel an urgency rare in Christie’s work: each chapter is a countdown.
Ahead of Its Time
Published in 1936, the book anticipates the modern serial-killer thriller, with its apparently random victims, its letters to the detective and its atmosphere of public panic. Yet Christie, true to herself, does not simply follow the obvious path. The solution depends on a brilliant idea that many later writers have borrowed, and the book is regularly listed among her very best.
Adaptations
It was filmed loosely in 1965 as The Alphabet Murders, with Tony Randall as Poirot, adapted faithfully for Agatha Christie’s Poirot in 1992 with David Suchet, and reimagined in 2018 by the BBC, with John Malkovich as an older, sadder Poirot.
Playing Fair
As always, Christie gives the reader every chance. The clues are there in Hastings’s account, and the key to the case lies in asking a simple question that Poirot keeps returning to: why would anyone choose to commit murders in alphabetical order? Readers who think about that question carefully may get there before the end; most, happily, will not.
Why Read It
A hair-raising story of terrible events that only the skilful Poirot can bring to an end, and one of the earliest and cleverest serial-killer mysteries ever written.
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