The murders of Mr. ABC
The murders of Mr ABC (original title The ABC Murders ) is the 18th detective novel by Agatha Christie . It first appeared on January 6, 1936 in the UK at the Collins Crime Club and on February 14 of the same year at Dodd, Mead and Company in the USA . In the following year, the Tal-Verlag Leipzig published the first German translation by Kurt Ziegler under the title The ABC timetable . In 1962 the Scherz Verlag re-published the novel under the title Die Morde des Herr ABC in the translation by Gertrud Müller, which is still used today.
Hercule Poirot , Arthur Hastings and Chief Inspector Japp are investigating .
introduction
The novel puts the personalities of Hercule Poirot , Arthur Hastings and Chief Inspector Japp at the center of the action. The narrative form is unusual in that the narrative perspective alternates between first person and third person, but this is emphasized in the introduction by Hastings. Christie had already experimented with this narrative that Charles Dickens in Bleak House had applied for the first time, in her novel The Man in the Brown Suit ( The Man in the Brown Suit , 1924). Also unusual is the fact that the stories from the third person are always reconstructed by the first person narrator, Hastings. This narrative technique is a bit cumbersome, but it shows Christie's attempts to experiment with the narrative perspective, as best seen in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd ( Alibi , 1926).
action
After his return from South America, Hastings is invited by his old friend Poirot to his new apartment, where he has retired. The Belgian tells him about an anonymous letter, signed with ABC, in which he is challenged to commit a crime in Andover on June 21st which he now has to either thwart or solve. While Hastings dismisses the letter as nonsense, Poirot is worried and has therefore also informed Scotland Yard in the person of Chief Inspector Japp. When there was no news from Andover on the day in question, everyone was initially reassured. But the following day the body of Alice Ascher is found, which was probably killed the night before. The old woman was the owner of a small tobacco shop, where she was killed from behind, presumably by her last customer.
After their interrogations, Poirot and Hastings quickly exclude their husband Franz Ascher, who is a native of Germany, as the perpetrator. Although he is aggressive and has threatened his wife with violence on several occasions, it seems unlikely that he is the culprit. His language and character do not match the letter writer and his wife would hardly have turned her back on him. There was also a train timetable on the counter , which Alice Ascher did not sell. This so-called ABC plan, in which all information is arranged alphabetically, was deliberately placed and did not show any fingerprints. This now shows the breakdown of the pseudonym that the perpetrator intentionally left behind. Poirot fears more letters and murders after an "ABC complex".
A few weeks later, as expected, Poirot received the next letter announcing another event for the town of Bexhill-on-Sea that he could not prevent. Elizabeth, "Betty," Barnard was found strangled with her own belt on July 25th. The ABC killer announced, again a few weeks later, the next "case" for the 30th of the month, ie August 30th, in Churston. This murder of Sir Carmichael Clarke cannot be prevented, despite all police measures, because the letter was incorrectly addressed and did not reach Poirot until that day. Sir Carmichael, like Alice Ascher, was slain.
Poirot and the police are initially in the dark, but a number of clues point to a peddler selling women's stockings. Because already in the first murder case Poirot and Hastings had found a pair of brand new silk stockings, of all things, in Alice Ascher's sparsely furnished apartment, among old and worn things. A first witness also complained about the intrusiveness of a peddler and mentioned stockings. The fourth "incident" announced for Doncaster on September 11th seems to go wrong: A man is stabbed to death in a movie theater whose name begins with "E" and not with "D". Shortly afterwards, the stocking dealer Alexander Bonaparte Cust turns himself in to the police and makes a confession. He had been present at all the crime scenes.
The case appears closed, but despite the fact that Cust has admitted the deeds, he claims never to have heard of Hercule Poirot and neither can he explain the letters, despite being written on his own typewriter. Cust has epilepsy and has memory problems . So he cannot remember the actual acts, but believes that he has committed them because he was always nearby or at the crime scene. He also interprets clues such as blood stains on the sleeve of his coat (which were, however, placed there by the actual murderer) as evidence of his own perpetration. Poirot becomes suspicious and continues to research.
In a quick turn of the case, Poirot can prove that Sir Carmichael Clarke's brother, Franklin Clarke, who sought his fortune , wanted to make the murders look like those of a mad serial killer in order to divert attention from the murder of his brother. Franklin had met Cust by chance and, without his knowledge, selected him to be the "executor" of his plan. He arranged it so that Cust as a traveling salesman has been set, and made sure that his route would run in the predetermined path so that he would show up each tailored to the crime scenes. He also sent Cust a box of ABC train schedules and a typewriter on which he had already typed the ABC letters.
people
- Hercule Poirot - private detective
- Captain Arthur Hastings, Poirot's friend
- Chief Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard
- Alice Ascher - owner of a tobacco shop and first murder victim
- Franz Ascher - her husband
- Mary Drower - her niece
- Betty Barnard - second murder victim
- Donald Fraser - her jealous friend
- Megan Barnard - her sister
- Sir Carmichael Clarke - third murder victim
- Franklin Clarke - his brother
- Thora Gray - his secretary
- Alexander Bonaparte Cust - peddler for stockings
References to other works
The investigative chief inspector Japp, mentally always two steps behind Poirot, has appeared in numerous novels and stories with Poirot since Christie's first published novel The Missing Link in the Chain . At the end of the 1930s, his appearances also ended, most recently in The Secret of Buckle Shoes .
Reception and literary criticism
Already in the Times literature supplement of January 11, 1936, the review concluded with this conclusion:
- "If Mrs. Christie ever deserts fiction for crime, she will be very dangerous: no one but Poirot will catch her." (Times, Literary Supplement, January 11, 1936)
- German: "If Mrs. Christie should ever give up fiction for a crime, she will be very dangerous: nobody but Poirot will catch her."
Important publications in English and German
- 1936, Collins Crime Club (London), January 1936, Hardback, 256 pp.
- 1936, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), 1936, Hardback, 306 pp.
- 1937, German first edition under the title: The ABC timetable: Translation by Kurt Ziegler: Tal-Verlag Wien; Leipzig
- 1962, new edition under the title Die Morde des Herr ABC: Translation from English by Gertrud Müller: Scherz Verlag Bern; Stuttgart; Vienna
- 2014, new translation under the title Die Morde des Herr ABC: Translation from English by Gaby Wurster: Atlantik Verlag Hamburg
Film adaptations
For the first time the detective novel was filmed under the title Die Morde des Herr ABC ( The Alphabet Murders ) in 1965 with Tony Randall as Hercule Poirot and Anita Ekberg . However, the script corresponds only in the main motifs, but not in most of the people, places and the plot of the literary original and was provided with slapstick-like inserts. The characters Poirot, Hastings and Japp are also completely changed. Margaret Rutherford and Stringer Davis have a cameo as their roles from the Miss Marple films.
As part of the television series Agatha Christie's Poirot , the material was re-filmed with minor cuts (details, characters) with David Suchet in the lead role. The first broadcast was on January 5, 1992 as the first episode of the fourth season under the title "Murder according to schedule".
Another film adaptation was produced as a three-part series for the BBC in 2018 . The screenplay was written by Sarah Phelps , directed by Alex Gabassi , and the role of Hercule Poirot by John Malkovich .
Audio books
- 2003 The murders of Mr. ABC. 3 CDs. Read by Rainer Bock. Director: Caroline Neven du Mont. Abridged version by Angela Thomae. From the English by Renate Weitbrecht: The Hörverlag Munich
- 2006 The murders of Mr. ABC. 6 CDs. Only unabridged reading. Speaker: Martin Maria Schwarz. Director: Hans Eckhardt: Verleger Marburg / Lahn: Publishing house and studio for audio book productions
Web links
- The ABC Murders on the official Agatha Christie website
- The Alphabet Murders (1965) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The ABC Murders (1992) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The ABC Murders (2018) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ American Tribute to Agatha Christie
- ↑ a b German first edition in the catalog of the German National Library
- ↑ a b New translation in the catalog of the German National Library
- ^ Audiobook (licensed) in the catalog of the German National Library
- ↑ Audiobook (complete) in the catalog of the German National Library