Clues to Christie: The Definitive Guide to Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, and all of Agatha Christie's Mysteries

Clues to Christie: The Definitive Guide to Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot and all of Agatha Christie's Mysteries

The ultimate introductory guide to Agatha Christie and her detectives, including stories featuring Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and Tommy & Tuppence.

Ever wondered how Agatha Christie became the world's best-selling storyteller? Never read one even though you know someone who loves her? Too bewildered by the choice of books to know where to start? Then CLUES TO CHRISTIE could be the key that unlocks the door to a world of mystery, thrills and romance that has captivated readers from 9 to 90 for the last 90 years.

With more than two billion book sales, Agatha Christie is the world's best-selling novelist, translated into more languages than Shakespeare. And with more than 100 books and plays to her name, and over 150 short stories, it is no surprise that one-third of all fiction readers have read an Agatha Christie, and millions have seen the films and TV series.

This exclusive eBook sampler includes a specially written introduction by the award-winning author and world's foremost expert on Agatha Christie, John Curran. Together with other useful and enlightening material to help readers navigate the world of Agatha Christie, such as reading lists, suggestions on different ways to read the books, a Poison Primer, and an A to Z of characters, CLUES TO CHRISTIE also includes three specimen stories by the Queen of Crime, to introduce her world-famous detectives of Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple and Tommy & Tuppence Beresford, and to help you decide which Agatha Christie books you want to read next.

Calling this a definitive guide to anything, let alone to 'all of Agatha Christie's mysteries, is definitely taking artistic license too far. The introductory sections about Agatha Christie and the later section about her interest in poisons are certainly interesting, but don't really contain anything you wouldn't get from reading her autobiography, and the rest of the book is simply a reprint of three of her short stories and then lists of her works divided in different ways (by the means of death, by the detectives involved, by location, and so on) and a reprint of the covers of the novels the author says were Christie's personal favourites.

A Study in Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes

A Study in Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes

What other characters from English literature have captivated hearts and minds as thoroughly as Sherlock Holmes and his loyal companion John Watson? Many fans imagine the relationship between these men is deep and more than platonic. In A Study in Lavender, the Holmes universe is queered and ten authors have devised stories in which Holmes and Watson are lovers, or investigate mysteries of inverts hidden from the laws and cultures of the Victorian era; even the indomitable Lestrade has his turn at love; and famous actors who helped put Holmes on the silver screen face trysts they never dared to film.

I was hoping this would be good and not just an attempt to cash in in the sudden mainstream awareness of the homosexual subtext that can be seen in the Holmes stories (thank you Robert Downey Jr!). And luckily I was proved right!

The Best Alternate History Stories of the Twentieth Century

Best Alternate History Stories of the 20th Century

Explore fascinating, often chilling "what if" accounts of the world that could have existed–and still might yet . . .

Science fiction’s most illustrious and visionary authors hold forth the ultimate alternate history collection. Here you’ll experience mind-bending tales that challenge your views of the past, present, and future. 

The definitive collection: fourteen seminal alternate history tales drawing readers into a universe of dramatic possibility and endless wonder

Another anthology of alternate history stories, some of them utterly heartbreaking. One of them even made me cry!

Other Earths Anthology

Other Earths

one world among many... eleven stories about them all

What if Lincoln never became president, and the Civil War never took place? What if Columbus never discovered America, and the Inca developed a massive, technologicallyadvanced empire? What if magic was real and a half-faerie queen ruled England? What if an author discovered a book written by an alternate version of himself?

These are just some of the possible pathways that readers can take to explore the Other Earths that may be waiting just one page away.

This is an anthology of alternative history stories and it's one of my favourite genres so I was excited about reading it. Sadly, that didn't last...

There are only eleven stories in the book so I'll discuss each one individually.

The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

I won't be reviewing every single story in this volume the way I did in the last anthology I reviewed, simply because there are twenty-eight stories in here and I could end up with a review longer than the book itself. I will say however that there isn't a bad story in the bunch, which is an achievement for any anthology, let alone one as well-filled as this one is.

Sideways in Crime

Sideways in Crime

This book features alternative history and mystery! "Sideways in Crime" is a brand new anthology of all-original stories from some of the genre's foremost writers. Featuring an eclectic range of alternative history crime stories, from Jacobean power-plays to far future empires, this new anthology explores the darker side of the alternative history genre. It includes new stories by Kage Baker, Stephen Baxter, Tobias Buckell, Pat Cadigan, Paul Di Filippo, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Theodore Judson, Jack McDevitt, John Meaney, Paul Park, Mike Resnick & Eric Flint, Mary Rosenblum, Chris Roberson, Kristine Kathryn Rusch and SM Stirling.

I've always been fascinated by alternate history and I love mysteries so this anthology caught my eye right away.