The Murder on the Links was a book, written by detective write Agatha Christie, published in 1923, and starring Hercule Poirot and Hastings. The book was like many of Agatha Christie’s books, written with the current societal conditions of that time, and with a large number of characters in the book. With these characters and the complexity of the plot, it was hard to make a guess as to who the actual villains are; another notable part of this book was that Hastings sort of broke with Poirot midway during the book, when it started becoming clear that a woman that Hastings loved, Dulcie Duveen, could be a suspect. At one point Hastings physically held down Poirot and let Duveen flee; but Poirot does not get side-tracked, and at the end, Poirot brings them together again. The book was more French based than English, with the crime being committed in a French location, and the investigating magistrate and detective both being French. Interestingly, this book was dedicated upon its release to her husband Archibald Christie, who later acquired a lover and divorced her a few years later.

The book starts with Hastings falling in love with a bright vivacious girl (who seems to ignore him to some extent as an old fashioned person); he tells Poirot about this when they meet, and then Poirot gets a wire (among the many mundane pieces of mail that he gets including requests to find lost dogs) from the South of France asking for help from a Monsieur Paul Renauld. Poirot is interested and decides to go there along with Hastings; they reach the villa Villa Genevieve in Merlinville-sur-Mer on the French coast where they discover that they are too late; Monsieur Paul Renauld is already dead. He was killed just a few hours ago and left in a shallow grave.
He was killed after 2 masked invaders came into the home around 2 AM, tied up his wife, and took him away wanting to know a secret, and then they killed him. However, apparently the door was open and there was no sign of forced entry. Their son Jack had been sent away on business, and there were three female servants in the house. And there is a French investigating magistrate, as well as a egoist French detective.
The story involves ladies who used to visit Monsieur Paul Renauld at night, a decades old murder crime, a fight between father and son, an altered will, an apparent second murder, a missing weapon, and many twists in the story. Read the book, it is pretty interesting.

The Seven Dials Mystery was a piece of detective fiction written by Agatha Christie, and published in 1929. The book is set in the mansion of Chimneys, which featured in an earlier book by Agatha Christie, and as well as the characters from the earlier book, Lady Eileen (Bundle) Brent, Lord Caterham, Bill Eversleigh, George Lomax, Tredwell and Superintendent Battle. The book is a pure detective novel, and was converted for television in 1981 (displayed in March, 1981). However, the book did not earn the usual amount of critical acclaim, with some initial reviews criticizing the book for somewhat deserting the pure detective yarn, and presenting more information to the readers than required. The book starts with a murder in The Chimneys (but with nobody identified as the murderer), and moves onto a seedy nightclub in London called The Seven Dials where there appears to be a meeting of conspirators in a secret room.

As usual, like the other works by Agatha Christie, there are many surprises, with no one being whom they claim to be; who can you trust ? The first murder in the book is at The Chimneys where Gerald “Gerry” Wade, one of the guests, normally sleeps late; his friends want to have fun with him, and they set 8 clocks with 8 alarms (at a time gap of 30 minutes), starting from 6:30 PM. However, Wade apparently sleeps through all the alarms, to the surprise of all, and why not, since he is dead in his bed, through poison, and one of the clocks is missing. However, the inquiry cannot find out who was responsible. After Chimneys returns to its original owner, Lord Caterham, his daughter, Bundle, wants to investigate further. This intensifies when another man drops dead in front of her car, having been shot. This investigation takes her further into mystery, with a secret science plan that is very important, a secret society, and so on.

The Mystery of the Blue Train was a book by Agatha Christie (published in 1928); this was written at a time of great stress for Agatha Christie, since it was only recently that her husband had declared his intention of leaving her for another woman and had sought a divorce, her mother had died recently; she was also in need of money at this point of time. Writing this novel was not easy for her, since she did a word count regularly of what all she had written. At this time, she had also seen a number of her friends deserting her, and had come up with 2 lists:
Order of Rats – Friends who had not stood by her when required
Order of Faithful Dogs (O.F.D) – Charlotte Fisher, and her terrier Peter who provided her with a lot of affection.
This book was dedicated to the second group, those who supported her. The book was based on a short story by Agatha Christie herself, a short story of 1923 called The Plymouth Express (featuring Poirot).

The Blue Train is a murder mystery set on a train. Poirot is on the ‘Le Train Bleu’ train, bound for the French Riveria. On board are an assortment of people, such as Katherine Grey, who has inherited a huge sum and is enjoying herself with her first trip out of England. She meets an American heiress on board, Ruth Kettering, who is escaping from her marriage (although her estranged husband Derek Kettering with the dancer Mirelle); and then Ruth is found dead, having been strangulated to death. A famous diamond is also found missing, and the dead girl’s father commissions Poirot to investigate the crime.
At first glance, the husband would be the obvious suspect, but there could be more factors, since a famous diamond thief is also on board; is there more that meets the eye, and can Poirot be successful once again ?

By this time of publication of this novel, Agatha Christie had developed a huge reputation, and a large number of fans. However, when this novel was published, Agatha Christie had gone through a major upheaval in her life, with her husband declaring that he wanted to divorce her (in late 1926) after stating that he was in love with somebody else, and in December, Agatha Christie had vanished for a period of 11 days after a fight with her husband, with a massive manhunt (and till now, there is no credible story of what happened in those 11 days).
‘The Big Four’ stars the famous detective Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings, and Inspector Japp, the familiar figures from the Hercule Poirot series. This book is not one single long book involving a crime, but instead a series of short crimes, all of them involving the Big Four villains (and these are in turn linked to a series of short stories that appeared in a magazine called ‘Sketch’). The novel however depicts characters that are very cliched, such as the Chinese villain characterised as a Fu-Manchu type of villain, a French charming and dangerous girl, and an American multi-millionaire.

The novel starts with Hastings going to meet Hercule Poirot, who is going to America after an invitation from millionaire Abe Ryland, who is a soap king. At this time, Poirot asks whether Hastings has ever heard of a group called ‘The Big Four’, but Hastings has no idea. Then a man comes in and starts describing the various members of the The Big Four:
- Number 1 – A Chinese mastermind called Li Chang Yen, the person behind The Big Four
- Number 2 – No Names, but represented by the sign $, so most likely an American
- Number 3 – A charming French lady
- Number 4 – Just the destroyer
Poirot and Hastings faked their departure, but when they come back to the house, they find the man to be dead; the man was identified by Inspector Japp as a member of the Secret Service. And then they get into more adventures, fighting with The Big Four, including more murders.