Third Girl

Whose work are we actually reading at this point? There were major differences in punctuation, word choices, and scene breaks between the original Collins and Dodd Mead editions of this novel. There were further differences between the Dodd Mead editions republished by Random House/Avenel and the Dodd Mead editions republished by Simon & Shuster/Pocket. There are further additions still in the recent Signet, Berkley, and Leventhal and Black editions. For every publishing house putting out her works, there seem to be a new batch of editors altering Agatha Christie's words and the sound of her voice. Here the publishers at Collins, dissatisfied with their own earlier efforts, put still more distance between author and public with a "New Ed" edition. What's the matter with these publishers? Whose voice do they think we want to hear when we sit down to a novel by Agatha Christie? And what will she sound like twenty years from now? It's frightening that her estate has failed to see the importance of guarding her words as she wrote them. Please tell me I'm not the only one here who senses that a crime has been committed.

THIRD GIRL has an ending that always surprises me, andI must have read the book ten times or more, the plot if so complex I can only barely remember how it comes out. I feel the book is a greta evocation of Swinging London of the 1960s and that it should have been filmed back then, maybe with the following cast, Rita Tushingham as poor Norma Restarick; Tom Courtenay as Dr. Stillingfleet, her psychiatrist who falls in love with her; Vanessa Redgrave could have played Frances Cary; Terence Stamp could have been David Baker, the "Peacock." I wonder if Christie ws thinking back to her own early vocal training when she gave NORMA and LOUISE their names, because of course they were famous French operas at the time Christie was studying in Paris. "Louise" was written by Charpentier, and that becomes her last name, a coincidence no one remarks about in the novel itself. It is a book in which Christie seems to be reviewing her own astonishing career. Mrs. Oliver suggests that she might write a book in which a child commits a murder: "Not meaning to, but just by her father telling her to give her mother a drink made of pounded up box hedge," thus neatly conflating the plots of two much earlier novels from the 1950s, CROOKED HOUSE and A POCKETFUL OF RYE. I thought also the glamorous fresco painted on the living room wall of the flat where the three girls live, a harlequin leaping into space, harked back to one of Christie's famous characters, Harley Quin from THE MYSTERIOUS MR. QUIN and may have provoked Christie to think further about Quin, because as we know she was soon to return to him after not having written about him for 30 years, in THE HARLEQUIN TEA SET.

This book, first published in 1966, gives us a very different look at London than the wonderful novels Christie wrote in the 40's did. Poirot amongst the swinging Bohemians? Well, it happens. Christie and Poirot both changed with the times and the result is interesting, although probably not her best work. The term "third girl" refers to a way of leasing flats, very similar to the term "roommates" in the US. One girl rents a flat, then advertises for a second and third girl to share accommodations and expenses. Ariadne Oliver once more assists Poirot in this tale of impersonation, drugs, smuggling, forgery, blackmail, and a young girl who can't remember committing a murder. This is a great commentary on English life in the sixties and, as always, excellent plotting and character development in the Christie tradition.

Agatha Christie has always done well in depicting characters and their traits. Third Girl is another example of this great ability. Hercule Poirot once again unravels a mystery of deep undercurrents and seemingly unanswerable questions. Third Girl is a winding tale of suspense and intrigue.

Another classic by Agatha Christie. The setting is very much 60's-ish, but I've never minded that Agatha's books are set solidly in the era they are written in. Only bad part, it can be a bit hard to keep all the characters straight. But without many characters, it wouldn't be much of a mystery would it? Agatha does a good job of reviewing the clues in the book through, preventing you from having to keep track of them in a notebook.