In 2023, inspired by booktuber emmie’s mission to solve The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and the dozens of other similar booktuber videos since, I decided to try my own hand at outsmarting the Queen of Crime. Based on my blog recaps, I’ve done 10!

And how did I fare? Ahem…

• The Moving Finger (Miss Marple) – no, not even close, alas
• At Bertram’s Hotel (Miss Marple) – kinda? I figured out whodunnit, and parts of the howdunnit and whydunnit, so a half-victory rounded up to a win?
• Cards on the Table (Hercule Poirot) – LOL no. But at least I was close. And honestly, this was so much fun to try to solve!
• Murder in Mesopotamia (Hercule Poirot) – LOL, not even close. But kudos to Dame Agatha; this big reveal made me yell so loud I scared my cat away.
• A Caribbean Mystery (Miss Marple) – nope, and this made me shake my head because the key clue seemed so obvious after the fact. This has also become one of my favourite Marples and overall Christies, because of how deliciously twisty it is.
• Peril at End House (Hercule Poirot) – YES I DID!!! FINALLY!!! And not even in a half-victory-I-kinda-figured-stuff-out way, but in a full-blown YES I GOT IT victory! Woohoo!
• Five Little Pigs (Hercule Poirot) – YES I’M ON A ROLL!!!! I must say, solving one of these is such a fantastic high!
• Evil Under the Sun (Hercule Poirot) – And so my streak ends. No, I was not even close on this. Bah. How the mighty have fallen…
• Hallowe’en Party (Hercule Poirot) – Yes, but this victory felt more puzzling than victorious for some reason. Poirot turns a bit philosophical in this one, and some of his meanderings threw me off.
• Honourable Mention: A Haunting in Venice, the movie (very loosely) adapted from Hallowe’en Party – I watched that in the theatre, and I DID solve it before the big reveal. So there! (Maybe that’s why solving the book version felt more puzzling than victorious? Because possibly some of the elements from the movie played a role in my solving the book?)
• A Pocket Full of Rye (Miss Marple) – kinda, yes. I got the whodunnit and their motive, but the method was all wrong, and my guess about an accomplice was totally off-base. So yet another half-victory rounded up to a win?

And there we have it! Out of the 10 Agatha Christie books I tried to solve, I got 3 fully right, and 2 partially (mostly?) right. Plus I did solve the movie adaptation. And honestly, that’s actually far better than I thought I did! Woohoo!

Christie Finale for 2023

Did I Know Whodunnit?

LOL, no, as it turns out, the person I was so sure was the killer turned out to be innocent, and the killer was someone who I never even suspected. So Christie managed to get a final knockout blow in and secure her utter and undisputed dominance as Queen of Crime and mystery puzzler extraordinaire before the end of the year.

But 2024 is a new year! And there are many, many more mysteries for my little grey cells to solve!

Honourable Mentions: Japanese Honkaku Mysteries and Dorothy L Sayers

In an attempt to branch out beyond Agatha Christie (and really, soothe my ego by solving potentially simpler puzzles), I also tried my hand at solving Golden Age-inspired detective fiction from Japan and Christie’s Golden Age contemporary Dorothy L Sayers.

And how did I fare? Well…

• The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji – LOL, no. My gut did lean towards the right answer, but my rational mind got in the way. I went with the answer that made sense but turned out to be wrong, so well done, Yukito Ayatsuji.
• The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo – no, I didn’t, and worse: this mystery takes pride of place as the first story where I didn’t even realize the reveal was about to happen. I just kept reading and then accidentally learned the big reveal without meaning to. Still a good mystery, and I have a copy of another book in the series, The Inugami Curse, on standby for 2024.
• Whose Body? (Lord Peter Wimsey) by Dorothy L Sayers.- yes, I did, but it didn’t carry the same thrill as solving a Christie. Sayers is pretty transparent about Lord Peter’s thought processes throughout, including all of his theories, so the big reveal was pretty obvious. That being said, I’ve since learned that Sayers was a very different kind of writer: she was less interested in creating a puzzle to be solved than in exploring / reflecting the social mores of her time. She’s an incredibly skilled writer, and while I didn’t enjoy this as much as Christie’s books, a blog commenter convinced me to try one of the later Wimsey books. So I have Gaudy Night on standby for 2024.