Clue Attitude: Agatha Christie in Contemporary Literature and Pop Culture

While stuck on Mars by himself, astronaut Mark Watney reads Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, to keep himself entertained. While being stranded on a planet with a book sounds great, are mysteries really the best choice? It must make rereads awfully tiring once the identity of the killer has been revealed.

While maybe not really current pop culture, this movie was a big hit in its day, and is a satire of Agatha Christie books. It features two actors who played other famous detectives: Peter Falk (Columbo) and Peter Sellers (Inspector Clouseau), as well as Eileen Brennan, who also appears in the Clue movie, which is itself based on a board game that was inspired by Agatha Christie.

This is a little-known television movie from the 1980s which features some big-name actors, like Ian Holm and Peggy Ashcroft. In it, Hercule Poirot is murdered and it looks like the killer is none other than Agatha Christie herself! She did really grow to despise her most famous character, at one point calling him “a detestable, bombastic, tiresome, egocentric little creep.” And since Christie hated most every adaptation of her work, she would probably hate a movie in which she was a suspect even more.

This classic film is based on the Clue board game, which was influenced by Agatha Christie novels. In the game — and the film — the solution is who killed Mr. Body, with what implement, and where in the house it happened. You might have watched this film thinking it was cool there were three possible solutions. But did you know that it’s because the movie was shown around the country with three different endings, before they were all brought together for its video release?

And this is another Christie-inspired story, done marvelously well. A very rich author is found murdered, and his household is full of suspects. Was it the angry son, the ungrateful grandson, the greedy daughter-in-law? It’s up to the eccentric detective Benoit Blanc to get to the bottom of the mystery. There are currently two more Benoit Blanc mystery films in development, with another slew of famous actors attached to them.

This is the first in a series of new Poirot mystery novels that were sanctioned by the Christie estate. Hannah, a famous mystery writer on her own, continues the story of the Belgian detective and his little grey cells. In this book, the first of four (so far), Poirot receives a call from a frightened young woman, begging him to solve her murder.

This book, also the first of four so far, makes use of Christie’s famous disappearance and frames it as a case of blackmail and murder. Christie appears in all the books in the series as a detective herself.

And this is also a fictional take on what might have happened to Agatha Christie on those 11 days she was missing in 1926. In this novel, the author has discovered her husband is cheating, but is he also later responsible for her disappearance?

This is an upcoming mystery set at Agatha Christie’s home, but it is not investigated by the author herself. Instead, when a dead body is found in Mallowan Hall, it is her brilliant — and secretive — housekeeper Phyllida Bright, along with some help from the chauffeur, who is on the case!

And, last but not least, yet another book speculating on Christie’s disappearance. I have not read this upcoming novel yet. But from the description, it sounds like it might focus more on Nan O’Shea, the woman with whom Christie’s husband was having the affair that broke up the author’s first marriage. (Don’t worry, she then married a younger man, an archeologist, and she was much happier.)