Written on the eve of world war II, in longhand in one of Agatha Christie's notebooks the story was forgotten and until recently nobody knew of its existence. However an unexpected find by author and Christie enthusiast, John Curran when he was going through the dame's old notebooks means that this lost Christie story, a literary jewel, can be shared with the world and today the UK newspaper The Daily Mail publishes the short story with an introduction by A.N. Wilson. The first part is in today's newspaper while the concluding piece will be published in Monday's edition.
The short story entitled, The Capture of Cerberus, (Christie would later use this title for another story in 1947) was abandoned by Christie because the author considered it too political - it revolves around a dictator called August Hertzlein who is clearly based on Hitler. There is an article on
the exciting find HERE.It's crime all the way today on the Archive and later today I will look at the latest Ellery Queen magazine, a double issue folks. And part two of our look at other blogs will today focus on crime fiction blogs.
4 comments:
This is a wonderful find, and you'll be certain to give us a nice review of the short story, won't you, Gary.
Yes indeed, a neat find. Cool.
I love it when stuff like this happens. :-)
I thought it was a good find - until I read the story. Sadly, it was disappointing. Which isn't surprising - imagine someone finding some of your scribbles about a story/plot etc which you haven't bothered to self-edit... The concept had potential but the treatment was very poor; all tell, tell, tell and a little show. I like Agatha Christie and agree with AN Wilson that she's unfairly denigrated by many crime critics/writers; but this is not anywhere near her best. Sorry.
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