In my online book club, discussion turns from time to time to our favourite GAD novels of a particular decade. Having done the 1930s and the 1940s, we turned to the 1920s. And, since there’s an expectation of Agatha Christie being in the mix when discussing favourite GAD titles, I thought I’d return to what I remember to be my favourite from her first decade, The Seven Dials Mystery (1929).

I know, I know, one should typically opt for her debut The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) or the genre-busting The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), but I always feel like the reputation of those two books demands one reads them with a furrowed brow while nodding sagely every four paragraphs. Seven Dials, by comparison, I just remember being fun and with a couple of well-deployed surprises…so here goes a second visit some quarter-century after the first.

I was interested on my first read to see that this returned us to the country pile Chimneys from The Secret of Chimneys (1924), the house being rented by Lord and Lady Coote in a way that I think speaks to something about financial hardship (“You’ll be lucky…if you never see it converted into desirable flats with use of superb pleasure grounds.”). A prank by the collective of Bright Young Things present sees eight alarm clocks bought and set to go off early one morning in the bedroom of perennial late-sleeper Gerry Wade, only for the jest to sour when, on the morning of said cacophony, Wade fails to be roused because, well, he’s dead. And, to add to the confusion, seven of the clocks have been arranged together on the room’s mantle, the eighth being thrown from the window into the house’s grounds.

A second death, this one with a gasped-out message prior to expiry, will see Eileen ‘Bundle’ Brent, daughter of the family who own Chimneys, forming an alliance with Jimmy Thesiger and Gerry’s half-sister Loraine Wade as it becomes increasingly apparent that some shenanigans are happening in Seven Dials (once a “rather slummy district of London” which is — and remains — very “respectable and high class nowadays”), or possibly concerning a group calling themselves the Seven Dials. Whatever the cause, adventure is afoot, and these BYTs are going to hurl themselves into it with all the excitement of the Famous Five embarking on a picnic, regardless of whatever risks they may be running.

While overlong, perhaps showing Christie’s mastery of concise plotting still not fully established, the book really does remain a lot of fun, with some strong character notes, wry narration, and a growing sense of unease as Bundle, Jimmy, and Loraine find themselves gradually recruiting more people to their cause, and facing off against the inscrutable Superintendent Battle who discourages them from their course much like a disappointed father might chastise his unruly kin: with the full, resigned knowledge that they’re going to do it anyway.

Given the less brow-furrowing intent of this, it’s lovely to see Christie indulge in some touches of character as acute as anything she’ll continue to deploy for the rest of the many decades we now know were ahead of her in this genre. Steel magnate Lord Coote captured as “[t]he kind of man you’d get if a steam-roller were turned into a human being”, or Bundle teasing her father about seeing the spectral form of the ancestors who must have died in his bedroom. The dialogue is wonderfully light, too, showing the relationships that exist within groups effortlessly: like Jimmy’s butler Stevens enjoying a bantering relationship with his employer that should probably lose him his job, or little moments where, for all the seriousness of the scheme under development, some small humanity breaks through:

“I hope we shan’t go and shoot the wrong person,” said Bill with some anxiety.

“That would be unfortunate,” said Mr. Thesiger gravely.

Indeed, one of the successes of this book is how effectively Christie riffs on the clueless adventurer trope that was deployed fairly heavily throughout the 1920s while detective fiction found its feet, with an almost meta-narrative at times that shows you an insightful author who is going to eat that cake and have it too:

“It’s impossible,” said Jimmy, following out his own train of thought. “The beautiful foreign adventuress, the international gang, the mysterious No 7, whose identity nobody knows — I’ve read it all a hundred times in books.”

“Of course you have. So have I. But it’s no reason why it shouldn’t really happen.”

“I suppose not,” admitted Jimmy.

“After all — I suppose fiction is founded on the truth. I mean unless things did happen, people couldn’t think of them.”

“There is something in what you say,” agreed Jimmy. “But all the same I can’t help pinching myself to see if I’m awake.”

And yet we know that Christie is tweaking the formula slightly, with Battle brilliantly taking the air out of Bundle’s excitement when she goes to him to enquire about secret societies:

“Why shouldn’t a man call himself a Brother of Liberty and meet twice a week in a cellar and talk about rivers of blood — it won’t hurt either him or us. And if there is trouble any time, we know where to lay our hands on him.”

Christie walks a fine line between playing with and dismissing the tropes of these Secret Society novels, and in the brace of surprises she launches at the end — ridiculous, yes, but the whole book before them is hardly a serious examination of international politics — shows her skill at finding something new to do with familiar ingredients. She would unarguably write more Important novels and novels that Did More For the Genre, but as a refresher between serious novels of detection I honestly think this might be the most successful of her lighter novels relying more on thrills than clues. And any time spent with Battle is always enjoyable. Battle is wonderful.

So, yes, I think this does indeed remain my favourite Christie from this decade, showing such playful genre awareness and so much invention with ingredients that had been — and would continue to be — repeatedly picked over by a great many people who failed to bring this much flavour to what sounds like a pretty tepid setup. Not everyone will love it, of course, but that’s the joy of reading: if these same words don’t ignite in your heart the joy and lightness they do in mine, then I wish you nothing but the best of luck in finding those things elsewhere.

~

See also

Mike @ Only Detect: A notable aspect of the book’s off-kilter whimsy is the gender-bent logic that Christie applies to its cast of characters. To a degree that seems intentional, she spins up a world in which womenfolk are brave and cunning and menfolk are flighty and indolent. Much of the comedy here, and more than a little of the mystery, derives from the way that the central female and male characters play against stereotypes that would have been particularly rigid in the 1920s. The prime exception to this pattern is Superintendent Battle, the sleuth of record, who looms at the edge of the main action as a strong, gnomically tight-lipped presence He’s a man’s man, a copper’s copper, and as arrow-straight as his name suggests. Between Bundle and Battle, a criminal who ventures near Chimney doesn’t stand a chance.

~

The cover above is not my edition, but my scanner is broken and I can’t find a hi-res image of my copy. Nevertheless, I was intrigued to learn that this is being dramatised by Netflix. What an exciting prospect! Then I saw that the scripts were written by Chris Chibnall, the man who in recent years drove the good ship Doctor Who off a cliff, into the ground, and many other places that ships are not supposed to be driven. So I’ll be avoiding it — but, if it’s come out by the time this review sees daylight, I’d love to know the thoughts of anyone who watches it.