Three Act Tragedy
I’m sure I’ve mentioned on this blog before that I got into reading crime fiction through Agatha Christie, partly because of the wonderful film version of Murder on the Orient Express (reviewed on my film page) but also through my Mum buying me a copy of Nemesis with a creepy Tom Adams cover to get me through a bout of flu.
They Do it With Mirrors
The paintings of Tom Adams were associated with Christie’s novels in paperback for almost 20 years. A number of them were collected in Agatha Christine: The Art of Her Crimes in the early 1980s. Sadly this seems now to be out of print, but I was able to get hold of a slightly bashed second hand copy which, in addition to the artist’s own comments, has a commentary by Julian Symons and an introduction by John Fowles.
The Mysterious Mr Quin
I have always loved how Adams’ paintings caught the spirit of Christie’s novels, even when the objects on the covers seem obscure in terms of the story, although I’ve always suspected that if I had been paying more attention I would have seen a greater relevance in the objects he uses.
Hickory Dickory Dock
Sadly I don’t have a full set of the Tom Adams Christies but I’ve reproduced one or two of my favourites here and hope that you enjoy them. Although some of the later paperbacks have attractive covers nothing says Agatha to me like Tom Adams.
Bride of the Book God 
5 comments
Comments feed for this article
August 22, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Carl V.
Really fun images. I have yet to read any of Christie’s works, though it is on my list of things to do. I absolutely love the movie length features of her Poirot books starring David Suchet. Not sure how faithful they are to the book but I am a big fan. I saw a fantastic documentary of Christie the other day on the Documentary Channel. Just happened to stumble across it and was so glad I did, it was fascinating.
August 23, 2008 at 4:57 pm
brideofthebookgod
Carl, glad you enjoyed them; Christie isn’t the greatest writer in the world but I came to her books early and have a real affection for her for that reason.
There’s also a very good Dr Who episode in season four all about Agatha where you can have great fun identifying all the book titles hidden in the script!
August 28, 2008 at 7:38 am
f.yu
yeah i absolutely love all christie’s works, but i prefer the books compared to the movies
i’ve read more than half of her books but its really difficult to find the rest here…
currently trying to find ‘crooked house’ and ‘curtain’ to add to my collection, and i prefer the good old style of her writings where there are lots of murders and bodies, compared to some of her works that are all bout conspiracies because i cant really understand them anyway
sorry if you find my english not so good, because its not my first language, you see
August 29, 2008 at 10:47 pm
brideofthebookgod
f.yu – I hope you find the two you are looking for, Crooked House is particularly good.
March 29, 2010 at 1:35 pm
PiterJankovich
My name is Piter Jankovich. oOnly want to tell, that your blog is really cool
And want to ask you: is this blog your hobby?
P.S. Sorry for my bad english