The Agatha Christie Book Club©
By Christina Larmer
NB: Dear readers: Here are the first few chapters of a new crime fiction series I am writing based around my passion for Agatha Christie murder mysteries. It is the first in the series and will feature a book group who end up investigating mysteries that arise in their neighbourhood. I already have the next two books mapped out. Please let me know if you’d like to read any more from Book One.
Thanks,
Christina Larmer
Prologue
They would both learn the hard way.
But how? The woman sat, wedged up against the headboard of the bed and gave it some thought. To her left was a small table with the usual bedside accoutrement—a large, pearl coloured lamp, a clock radio (another thingamejig she had mastered, thank you very much), a glass of water, today’s local rag, opened at the classifieds, a half-read biography, her old watch, recently discarded, and a container of floss. She picked it up and absentmindedly pulled a long strand out, snapping it off and applying it to her recently brushed teeth. As she pushed and pulled, twisted and yanked, her eyes dropped back to the bedside table, and that’s when she saw it. The answer to all her prayers.
She would create the perfect murder. What a brilliant idea!
She dropped the floss to the floor and smiled, the first time she had smiled in months. Then she picked up the book and continued to read...
Chapter 1: Two weeks earlier
Alicia Finlay was in the wrong book club.
Of course, she hadn’t realized it at first. Had come along, every month for three months, the latest Booker Prize-winner wedged under her arm, a strained smile on her lips, and pretended to be having fun. But there was no fun to be had. On the fourth Monday night it dawned on her.
It was the table of canapés that first drew her attention to it. Not because she wanted to eat them. Quite the contrary. The stiff cardboard crackers adorned with dribbly yellow and red gunk resembled something her dog recently brought up. No, it was the simple fact that they had been placed to the side, just out of reach. So, too, were eight sparkly crystal wine glasses and two bottles of Merlot, opened, inviting, yet unattainable. It would all have to wait until the serious chatter was over. She knew how things went. Alicia’s mouth salivated. She glanced at the man to her right but he was deeply engrossed in something the woman to her left was saying.
“It’s not so much the physicality of the tear drop,” the woman, Verity, was saying, “but the way in which it draws the reader into the major themes of the novel. There really is a reoccurring water motif running all the way through this book. Don’t you agree, Alicia?”
She darted her eyes from the wine bottle to the grey haired woman talking and smiled awkwardly. “Oh, well, I—” She paused. Laughed a little. “Actually, sorry, wasn’t really paying attention. Thought I might help myself to a glass of red.”
“Red?”
“Yes, red wine.” She stood up. “Does anyone else want me to get them a glass? Something to eat?”
Kirsten, the book group’s hostess, sat forward with a start.
“Ahh, sorry, Alicia, but it’s not really time for wine, we’re still in discussion mode.”
She tapped her wrist watch.
“Oh,” said Alicia, dropping reluctantly back into her seat. “We can’t discuss and drink at the same time?”
Kirsten smiled politely, exchanged glances with another participant—they had exchanged those kinds of glances before—and shook her head, no.
“Why not?” Alicia persisted and Kirsten looked slightly taken aback.
“It’s just not what we do... here.” She fumbled for her sheet of questions. “Okay then, if we can return to the subject at hand. Where were we exactly? I think we were up to question five? Yes, style of writing. Have you got anything to say about that, Wilfred?”
She stared pointedly at a large man with a shaggy beard and gold-rimmed glasses who was slouched in an armchair across from Alicia. He pushed the glasses back into position and then slid one hand down to his beard and began caressing it lovingly. He’d been waiting for this.
“Yes, right well, if you ask me, and I believe you just have, I really have my doubts about this chappie. His writing, well, it leaves a lot to be desired don’t you think?” A few murmurs of agreement broke out around the lounge room where the meeting was being held, and, encouraged, he launched into his trademark monologue on the fallibilities of today’s novelist. There wasn’t a decent writer left in the world, apparently, not since Hemingway and Salinger had a good book been published. Alicia couldn’t help wondering what a science lecturer would know about that but pushed the thought away and let out a long, soft sigh instead.
Why hadn’t it dawned on her earlier? Why had it taken four sessions and a forbidden bottle of wine to make her see what was probably blatantly obvious to everyone else in the room from day one?
She just didn’t fit in here.
If truth be told, Alicia Finlay didn’t give a toss about literature. She just wished she did, in the same way a woman who guiltily watches Desperate Housewives on TV, wishes she could find the strength to switch over to that really important current affairs show on the public broadcaster. She just didn’t have it in her. She just didn’t care enough.
Alicia’s mind wandered now to her own bookshelf in the small, semi-detached house she shared with her sister Lynette and their Labrador Max. The shelf was huge, took up an entire wall and tipped ever so precariously to the right. It was cluttered with well-thumbed paperbacks, mostly crime novels, and mostly by British author Agatha Christie. Alicia’s smile returned. What really woke her up in the morning and saw her drift off to sleep most nights was an old-fashioned whodunit. And if it happened to be penned by the Queen of Crime herself, all the better.
She suppressed a giggle. Imagine if she suggested Murder on the Orient Express for the next book club! Wilfred would have a fit. Kirsten would choke on her chamomile tea. And I’d be in book heaven, she thought.
That’s it. Enough’s enough.
She stood up. She walked across to the table. She picked up the bottle of cabernet sauvignon and poured herself a generous glass. As she did so, the room fell silent behind her and she could feel their eyes boring into her back. She wondered if Kirsten would tackle her to the ground and wrench the wine out of her hands screaming, “But it’s not drink time yet!”
She turned around slowly and tried for her bravest smile. Kirsten’s eyes were abnormally wide. Verity looked nervous, glancing between Alicia and Kirsten. And Wilfred had stopped stroking his beard.
“What are you doing, Alicia?” Kirsten said eventually.
“Just helping myself, before I head off,” she replied.
She finished the drink, placed the glass down and reached for her handbag.
“Where are you going?”
She took a deep breath, tried for a smile. “Look, I’m really sorry, guys, I gave it a go, but this club is clearly not right for me.”
They all looked stunned, as if it hadn’t even dawned on them, and Alicia realised then that it probably hadn’t. They were so self-obsessed they hadn’t noticed the elephant in the room. A wistful look crossed Verity’s face and for a moment Alicia thought she might leap to her feet and follow her out.
“But... but what about your book?” Kirsten demanded, grabbing Alicia’s pristine copy of the latest award-winning novel from the coffee table and thrusting it towards her.
“Oh no thanks, Kirsten, you’re welcome to it. I’ve got much better things to read at home.”
And with that Alicia Finlay walked out on the Monday Night Book Club, their suffocating rules and their tediously dull literature. And she returned to her inner city home where her sister was just starting work on a crispy duck stirfry, her dog was wagging his tail maniacally, and her latest Agatha Christie novel—Murder At The Vicarage—was waiting, temptingly, by her bedside.
“I think you should start a book club,” Lynette announced between mouthfuls of dripping duck and broccoli. Alicia scoffed and Max pricked up his ears hoping the conversation had something to do with food and his mouth.
“Um, I don’t think you’ve been listening to me, Lynny, I hated the book club. I’m never going back. Why would I subject myself to a whole new one? It’s masochistic.”
“No, not that kind of book club. Start your own. One totally devoted to what you like.”
“Well, that would be crime fiction and last time I looked, you don’t have book clubs about that.”
She scooped a chunk of duck from her bowl and dropped it into Max’s waiting mouth. He slunk back under the table, satisfied.
Lynette frowned at her but let it pass. “Why not?” she said instead.
Of the two sisters, Lynette had always been the fearless one, always ready to dive head first into life, never considering consequences or looking back. Alicia, six years Lynette’s senior, was quieter and more conservative, less likely to just jump. She considered Lyn’s question and found that she came up short. Why not indeed?
“Seems to me,” Lynette continued, “that plenty of other people love crime fiction, too. You’re hardly alone.”
“Hell, more people read crime fiction than bloody Man Booker prize winning tomes of trite. Just look at the Millennium trilogy.”
“Exactly! So, it won’t be hard to get a group together. Just ask around. Or get on Twitter. You’ll be inundated. But if you’re not, I’m happy to plump up the numbers. I’ve always had a soft spot for Miss Marple, you know that.”
In fact both sisters had been Agatha Christie devotees since childhood, a legacy passed down from their mother, Amelia, who possessed almost every book in existence and read and re-read them at will. Their father, Tom, and brother, Monty (named after Agatha’s own son would you believe), were less inspired by the Queen of Crime and preferred a good, modern thriller complete with double crossing CIA agents and at least one missing nuclear bomb.
Alicia put her fork down, she could hear her heart beating suddenly, as though it had only just come to life.
“I’m not sure how it’d work,” continued Lynette but Alicia was way ahead of her now.
“I know how it’d work! Oh, it’d be great. We’d all choose our favourite crime novel and focus on a different one each fortnight. I’d start with Death on the Nile and then...” She stopped, darted her eyes from left to right. “No, no, forget that. We could all all choose our favourite Agatha Christie novel! It could be an Agatha Christie book club!”
Lynette frowned slightly and took a gulp of her white wine. “Well, that might be taking things a bit far. I mean, are there enough books to sustain it?”
“Enough books? It would take us about four years to get through them all, Lynny. The woman was prolific. She wrote something like 50 books in 35 years.”
Lynette looked impressed. “There you go then.”
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, this is the best idea you ever had!”
“I thought my duck creation—I’m calling it Lucky Duck by the way—was the best idea I ever had.”
“Nah, that comes a distant second. Good name by the way.”
Alicia began to contemplate the club and her heartbeat continued to accelerate. She hadn’t been so excited by anything in such a long time. Not since the receptionist at work had convinced her to take over her seat at the Monday Night Book Club.
Her heart skipped a beat. She knew how that had turned out. She slumped over her bowl.
“You really think it will work?”
Her sister winked. “’Course it will! You just have to get the right people together this time. Set up a Facebook account or start tweeting every one you know. How hard could it be?”
“Oh my God, it sounds like a bloody nightmare,” said Ginny, the aforementioned receptionist, over the espresso machine in the office the next morning....
