We both relished this glittering tale of twin poisonings set within a posh circle at a swanky London restaurant, though it comes with a few problems/weaknesses all its own. Come geek out with us over the intricacies of cyanide, the later career of Nancy Marchand, and so much more.

You'd be forgiven for mistaking the bucolic English country estate where this story is set for the Borscht Belt of upstate New York, because this Miss Marple yarn (see what we did there?) is pretty darn funny. Poor Edward and Charmian had no idea what they were in for when Jane Helier (!!) recommended they consult with the very best of amateur sleuths in the attempt to recover a modern-day buried treasure. Take cover, because the hijinks are flying fast!

As Mabelle Annesley could perhaps sing for you herself on her ukulele, it's time to "Get Ur Freak On," and how, in this remarkably cuckoo Monsieurs Quin & Satterthwaite tale. Enjoy! We always do when it's these two....

Bar the gates, because Parker Pyne is still abroad, flitting here, there, and everywhere in the Middle East. This time we find him in Persia (i.e., Iran)--specifically, the lovely city of Shiraz. But not so lovely as to prevent it from harboring one who is some combination of murderer, lunatic, and/or impostor. Let's sort it out together before our peripatetic PI jets off someplace else for further adventures.

While we did not love this one, we do appreciate what an outlier it is within the Christie canon, and the fact that it was the first "historical whodunit" to combine the genres of detective and historical fiction. Also, like most murder mystery fans we love a high body count, and at seven murders (and eight deaths), this one definitely does not disappoint in that area....

It has been too long since we visited with Miss Marple in short story form, which Christie herself identified as our favorite spinster sleuth's natural milieu, after all.... And we get more of Miss Marple than we normally do in this outlier of a short story, written as a script to be read out by Christie herself (!!) on the radio.

Mr. Quin has decided to haunt our podcast yet again with one of his trademark spooky tales involving a seemingly locked-room suicide, a talented (yet extremely grumpy) artist, and a book that Mr. Satterthwaite authored called Homes of My Friends. There is A LOT to discuss in this one; let's get to it!

We are excited to announce that we have started a Patreon account for bonus or extra episodes of our podcast. Please listen for a more thorough explanation, but our first episode is a VERY lively discussion of the recent John Malkovich adaptation of The ABC Murders.... We hope to see you over on the Patreon account, http://www.patreon.com/allaboutagatha. And have no fear: our regularly scheduled programming will resume right here next week.

Parker Pyne is still abroad, spreading his statistician-acquired cynical know-how the same way his forebears spread smallpox, this time on a "Pullman coach" across the desert from Damascus to Baghdad in which a sock may or may not have been used to murder someone. Where's Rob Kardashian when you need him? Fortunately, he's right here!

Christie rarely deals in psychopaths, but when she does she tends to handle them with panache, and this novel is no exception. (Not a spoiler, as we are put on our guard almost immediately that a psycho lurks in these pages....) While it is by no means one of our absolute favorites, we quite enjoyed this one, which features a number of familiar Christie tropes spun/twisted in ingeniously dark ways.