I have never been one for mysteries because they require patience and I am not a patient person. I am, in fact, decidedly impatient.

Nevertheless I cannot ignore an entire genre of literature my whole life and claim to be a lover of books and the written word and so I decided to delve into probably the most prolific mystery writer out there with 80 novels and is the best selling author of all time having sold four billion copies.

At any rate I have been reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd which was written in 1926 and feature her main Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. I enjoy reading old books. I like the details of life and how it was lived pre:iPod etc. I like how the language was used differently (clew instead of clue) and how people talked to one-another.

I am by no means a Christie expert by any stretch but I can say that I feel her strongest point so far is in how she writes dialogue. The interplay between characters is incredible and charming. There is a great deal of dry sarcastic wit and a clear eye for how people think.

At one point Christie has Poirot make an observation about women that I believe is quite profound although it would be easy to gloss over. Poirot says:

“Les femmes,” generalized Poirot. “They are marvelous! They invent haphazard – and by miracle they are right. Not that it is that, really. Women observe subconsciously a thousand little details, without knowing that they are doing so. Their subconscious mind adds these little things together- and they call the result intuition. Me, I am very skilled in psychology. I know these things.”

She is also good at developing multidimensional characters. I have to say I am enjoying her writing and will read more.