Post by Doghouse6 on Sept 14, 2021 21:16:30 GMT
Christie certainly did gather-up-all-the-suspects dénouements, notably and memorably in Murder on the Orient Express, but less frequently than the movie and TV adaptations may make it seem. Book-Death on the Nile’s climax is a small-scale affair that, if I’m remembering correctly, doesn’t even include the murderer until the end. As silly as the Poirot-accuses-everyone-before-revealing-true-killer gambit may seem, I have an immense fondness for it, especially as I first discovered Christie through the Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov films.
I don’t think Doyle ever did anything like that… He rarely did murder mysteries, in fact. (Sherlock Holmes stories most often feature bizarre, even surrealistic events—say, getting a job based on hair color—that Holmes explains by linking them to criminal but non-murderous activities.)
It’s funny, I can think of quite a few early mysteries in which the detective sums up the crime at length, but I can’t think of any early ones in which the detective rounds up all the suspects in a room. Carolyn Wells (a justly forgotten writer who wrote her best-known work in 1910s) wrote some with that kind of summation, but (1) I haven’t read her books much at all and (2) I’m sure some other writers used that kind of ending before her. If I find out anything more I’ll let you know.
I was especially tickled by the info about "justly forgotten" author Carolyn Wells (thanks for the link), who happens to share my family name. No relation, far as I know; an aunt did an extensive family tree some years back, and all those in that branch of the family came from Oklahoma rather than New Jersey. No relation to the one associated with Fargo either, more's the pity, but it did turn up a connection to both presidents Harrison (the first of which, William Henry, died in office only 31 days into his first and only term; typical family underachiever)!
Totally, irrelevant to anything, I know, but I have so little else at this juncture to contribute.
About that "Poirot-accuses-everyone-before-revealing-true-killer gambit," I remember it being something of a staple of the Thin Man films; not accusations per se but, as Nick would build his case for the assembled suspects, he'd direct questions to each one, barking out their name in accusatory tones, invariably prompting alarmed widening of the eyes and you-can't-pin-this-on-me protestations of innocence. By the fourth film, I think it was (Shadow Of the Thin Man), they were comfortable enough to even poke fun at it when, in the middle of Nick's long-winded revelations, Nora pleads, "Nicky, I can't stand it anymore...is it me?"