Black Coffee by Agatha Christie

Sir Claud Amory’s formula for a powerful new explosive has been stolen, presumably by a member of his large household. Sir Claud assembles his suspects in the library and locks the door, instructing them that the when the lights go out, the formula must be replaced on the table—and no questions will be asked. But when the lights come on, Sir Claud is dead. Now Hercule Poirot, assisted by Captain Hastings and Inspector Japp, must unravel a tangle of family feuds, old flames, and suspicious foreigners to find the killer and prevent a global catastrophe.

I'm not much of a mystery reader, but I've never read Agatha Christie and I wanted to, so thus, this book. I read the first fifty pages in a flash. This is not what I'd expected from Agatha, I thought. This is light reading. Lots of dialogue, minimal action.

As I looked more carefully at the book, I found out why. Despite the enormous AGATHA CHRISTIE written on the front cover, Black Coffee, the book, was not actually written by Christie. It is derived from a play Christie wrote, but it was actually written as a book by someone else.

So, have I read Christie or haven't I? I think not. I must still seek out a Christie for the whole experience. Black Coffee was watered down Christie.

Fascinating–particularly from a literary point of view, as someone who is slowly reading all the Poirot novels (we'll get to Miss Marple eventually, haha!).

The actual mystery is precisely what you'd expect from Christie and Poirot. I think what interested me was that it really does read like an adaptation of the play: much of the characters' movements and dialogue absolutely seems like it could have come out of stage directions and a script. That's not a bad thing. For me, since I recently had the pleasure of seeing The Mousetrap, I found it really cool to be able to “see” in this novel the way Christie was envisioning Black Coffee. (And from my understanding, she wrote the Black Coffee script first, so I found it enjoyable to compare the two plays and see where The Mousetrap built upon Black Coffee.)

It's worth it for anyone who's serious about Agatha Christie, of course, but it's also a fun little mystery in its own right!