A Miss Marple Nightcap: The Case of the Caretaker by Agatha Christie

It's another episode focused on the adaptations of Agatha Christie: specifically, those talented actors who have brought life to Monsieur Poirot and Miss Marple in films and television for nearly 100 years now. Who will win the title of Greatest Poirot and Greatest Marple of Them All? And how will the rankings leading up to my #1 picks shake out? I surprised myself with a few of my choices here, and I look forward to receiving outraged responses from at least a few of you. Special thanks to Scott Ratner for his spirited commentary on one of these actors, and the valuable insights his perspective provided. Please note that I spoil the plot of Curtain, and also the 2018 adaptation of The ABC Murders in this episode. Click here to purchase tickets for my panel at the upcoming Agatha Christie Festival. Please visit and subscribe to the podcast's Patreon page by clicking here. You can buy my debut mystery novel, The Busy Body, at your bookseller of choice in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia and New Zealand. I mentioned a few different adaptations over the course of this episode. Click below to access them. Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple (Japanese-language animated series) Murder by the Book (starring Ian Holm and Peggy Ashcroft) Various BBC radio plays Viki.com (where you can watch Ms. Ma, Nemesis)      

Saturday, April 27th is Independent Bookstore Day here in the United States, and what better way to celebrate than with this live interview from my book tour last week at Schuler Books in Grand Rapids, Michigan?! Special thanks to Elizabeth Bosscher for conducting this interview. I had such a great time sitting down with her. If you'd like to visit or learn more about Schuler Books, which has four locations in Michigan, click here. Please visit and subscribe to the podcast's Patreon page by clicking here. Click here to purchase tickets for my upcoming panel at the Agatha Christie Festival. You can buy my debut mystery novel, The Busy Body, at your bookseller of choice (though please do opt for an indie if you possibly can!) in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia and New Zealand.

Andrew Winans is the director of a new off-Broadway production of Christie's theatrical adaptation of her superb novel, The Hollow. I loved getting to speak with someone who has been in the trenches with his cast of actors and crew of professionals over the past few months, bringing this Agatha Christie play to life.... To purchase tickets for this run of The Hollow (13-21 April) at The Players Theatre in downtown New York, click here. Come visit me on my ongoing book tour for my mystery novel, The Busy Body! Click here for details. The Busy Body is available to purchase in the United States, the United Kingdom (where it is available via Kindle for £0.99 for all of April!), and Australia and New Zealand. Please visit and subscribe to the podcast's Patreon page here. Click here to purchase tickets for my upcoming panel at the Agatha Christie Festival in September.

Next week's episode will be a discussion with Andrew Winans, the director of an upcoming Off-Broadway production of The Hollow, a play written by Agatha Christie, based on her novel. If you are interested in attending this production, which runs from 13-21 April in New York, go ahead and click here. And my East Coast/Midwest tour of the United States for The Busy Body is about to begin! Click here for more details. I hope to see some of you very soon--in person!

If you're a longtime listener of this podcast, you'll know never to trust an actor in a Christie story. So what happens when not one but two actors feature among the rather small cast of suspects? A lot, as it turns out, in this early short story that showcases Christie's unique ability to spin seemingly endless variations on a single puzzle.... In addition to the titular story, the following Christies are spoiled in the course of this episode: "Miss Marple Tells a Story” "The Affair at the Bungalow” "Murder in the Mews” Cat Among the Pigeons Three Act Tragedy Death in the Clouds And Then There Were None The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Lord Edgware Dies Evil Under the Sun To purchase tickets for my panel at the upcoming Agatha Christie Festival, click here. To visit the Festival website and check out all the other fantastic panels on offer, click here. For details on my upcoming book tour in the Northeast and Midwest of the U.S., click here. Please visit and subscribe to the podcast's Patreon page here. You can purchase my debut mystery novel, The Busy Body, in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia and New Zealand.  

Quick: what is the best Joan Hickson adaptation of a Miss Marple novel? Or how about your least favorite Suchet episode? If you like pondering such questions, then this is the episode for you! Just beware of spoilers; I list all the novels Teresa and I spoil in the course of this wide-ranging conversation at the top of the episode. To buy tickets to the All About Agatha Live! Panel at the upcoming Agatha Christie Festival in Torquay in September, click here. To check out all the splendid events at this year's Agatha Christie Festival, click here. Go wild perusing all that Teresa and Bill at Peschel Press have to offer here. Come visit me in mid-April while I’m on tour in the Northeast and Midwest of the United States! Click here for details. You can buy my debut mystery novel, The Busy Body, in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia and New Zealand. You can visit and subscribe to the podcast’s Patreon page here.

Sarah Hinlicky Wilson is back! And with this episode, she’s officially earned her title as All About Agatha’s resident expert on Christian theology. I leaned heavily on her expertise for this episode, which involves a lot of parsing of Biblical and even apocryphal references, as we discussed this curious, fascinatingly revealing short story from the Star Over Bethlehem and Other Stories collection. To read Sarah’s newly published article “Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Christian,” click here. To visit Sarah’s website, click here. To visit my website to check out upcoming dates and locations for my book tour, click here. You can buy my debut mystery novel, The Busy Body, in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia and New Zealand. Please visit and subscribe to the podcast’s Patreon page here.

Actor Lee Samuel Tanng has appeared in TEN (!!) regional productions of plays based on Agatha Christie novels over the last eleven years. He sat down with me to discuss the joys of regional theater, the particular challenges (and advantages) of pulling off a murder mystery in real time, and of course, to rank his ten experiences from least to most favorite. This conversation was a blast. You can see a collage of all Sam's roles on the podcast's Twitter/X account here, and on Instagram here. Check out the Long Beach Playhouse here, which is where Sam has appeared in all these wonderful productions over the years. Long live regional theater! Please visit and suscribe to the podcast's Patreon page here. Click here for more information on upcoming book tour events for my debut mystery novel, The Busy Body. And you can now purchase The Busy Body in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia and New Zealand.

Perhaps it was inevitable that an episode about the longest-running play in history would be the longest episode ever produced on this podcast.... And yet there's nary a spoiler in it; so tuck in, safe in the knowledge that the secret of The Mousetrap remains safely locked in my heart. Nibble nibble. Squeak squeak. Special thanks to my guests Phil O'Neill and Scott Ratner, and to Nick Cardillo and Christopher Diehl for their invaluable contributions. Click here to access the BBC Documentary The Mousetrap and Me, which I reference in the show. You can find Phil O'Neill's wonderful book, Poems from the Unconscious, here, and Scott Ratner's extremely funny original play, Kill a Better Mousetrap, here. You can find my Crimereads article on why Agatha Christie has endured uniquely among mystery writers here. You can now purchase my debut mystery novel, The Busy Body (as a paper copy, ebook, or audio book), in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia and New Zealand. Click here for more information on upcoming book tour events for The Busy Body. Please visit and subscribe to the podcast's Patreon page.        

Alex Michaelides has a new mystery out, and I had such a great time geeking out with him about Agatha Christie and other literary inspirations of his, including the great Ruth Rendell. You can purchase Alex's new book, The Fury, in the United States here. And you can pre-order it in the UK (it's out February 1st) here. You can purchase my new book, The Busy Body, in the United States here, the United Kingdom here, and Australia/New Zealand here. For details on my upcoming book tour, visit my website here. You can visit and subscribe to the podcast's Patreon page here. This episode is sponsored by Even the Royals, which you can find wherever you listen to podcasts, including here.