Something I have noticed when reading discussions in Golden Age Mysteries groups or on people’s blogs is the sheer bizarreness of the book covers of certain detective novels, especially reprint covers. Rather than create an aesthetically pleasing scene some cover artists seem to have picked a selection of images from the book and then mixed them all together on the page, hoping they will convey a coherent message. And don’t get me started on the covers which have seductive women (which aren’t in the books to begin with) in random and highly unsuitable places, like perched outside a castle in the middle of winter and in the middle of the night. But rather than just rant about the vagaries of book covers, after all the content is more important, I decided to set an (albeit probably silly) challenge, an Agatha Christie challenge. Below are 10 pictures taken from Christie book covers, titles removed and I thought it would be fun to get you kind readers to guess which Christie novels are being depicted, some of which are more obvious than others. To have a go, write your guesses in the comments section below (trying to not look at other people’s answers obviously). I was thinking of doing another post next Friday revealing the answers.
N. B. I imagine if you have these editions or are a whizz at googling you can probably find out the answers that way but I think it would be great and much more fun if people without help have a go and guess. After all it is just for fun.
Book Cover No. 1
Book Cover No. 2
Book Cover No. 3
Book Cover No. 4
Book Cover No. 5
Book Cover No. 6
Book Cover No. 7
Book Cover No. 8
Book Cover No. 9
Book
Cover No. 10
Let the game commence.
crossexaminingcrime 
Hm.
#s 9 and 10 are a bit easy . . .
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haha yeah I literally just realised that so I have changed them. This is what you get when you try to watch TV and do a blog post!
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Hmmm… Interesting! Let me have a go…
(1) My initial guess was ‘Death Comes as the End’, but the prominence of the revolver made me sway towards ‘Death on the Nile’?
(2) …‘Appointment with Death’?
(3) ‘Cards’ on the Table’.
(4) No idea! What a bizarre picture…
(5) Ah, this must be ‘Carribean Mystery’!
(6) Is that a statue of a goddess – in which case ‘Nemesis’? Or is that mistletoe – in which case ‘Hercule Poirot’s Christmas’?
(7) I’m stumped… ‘Third Girl’?
(8) One thing in the picture made me think, ‘Towards Zero’.
(9) Definitely ‘Halloween Party’.
(10) ‘Body in the Library’?
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Good guesses JFW! And yes one thing I definitely took from this post was that there were some really weird Christie covers out there. I’ll be doing another post on Friday so you can see how many you got right then.
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I’m at a loss, I mean I think one of them, Book cover #5 could be Sleeping Murder *runs away*
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I have learned two things:
1) Apart from three of these, it’s ridiculously difficult to figure out what the hell is going on
2) An alternative career as a cover artist might be within my reach after all…
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Are you going nail your colours to the mast and have a guess on those 3 pics you mentioned? Or have you already got a packet of crayons out and are currently working on a new series of AC covers? One tip I will give is to look at the objects in the images in insolation and think about the deaths or settings or run ups to crimes in the Christie novels and cross reference the two. Although yeah these book covers are fairly mind boggling and it’s not surprising that they bear only a small relation to the book they are covering.
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What a great idea, what a nice way of passing the time on a wet January day.
I love Tom Adams, but nobody could say he was doing straightforward illustrations.
1) Death on the Nile
2) & 3) no idea
4) Dead Man’s Folly
5) no
6) Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
7) Taken at the Flood
8)Murder at the Vicarage
9) Halloween Party
10) Body in the Library
I once bought a Christie book in French to try to improve my language skills, and it had the wrong cover, just a random other Christie cover that I recognized, and that had zero connection with the contents.
Now I will look at other comments, which I have been scrupulously avoiding as I scroll up and down.
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Learning French through Christie novels, sounds a fun idea, though it may limit what sort of conversations you can enter into, although on the other hand you would be really good at giving an alibi or postulating on a murder.
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I am so enjoying Madame McGinty Est Morte. It’s written in a chatty, idiomatic way, and that’s how it’s been translated!
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Tom Adams was a great artist. Easiest way to do this is to have two copies of this page open side by side.
1. Death on the Nile.
2. Death in the Clouds.
3. Cards on the Table.
4. Dead Man’s Folly.
5. Caribbean Mystery.
6. Hercule Poirot’s Christmas.
7. Taken at the Flood.
8. Murder at the Vicarage.
9. Halloween Party.
10. Body in the Library.
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Let me see:
1. Death on the Nile
2. Ordeal by Innocence
3. Cards on the Table
4. No idea
5. Sleeping Murder
6. Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
7. Taken at the Flood
8. Murder at the Vicarage
9. Halloween Party
10. No idea
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Agatha Christie is so intriguing!
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I recognized some of these as I have a lot of the Tom Adams covers on much battered and treasured paperbacks. Here goes:
1. Death on the Nile
2. Death in the Clouds
3. Cards on the Table
4. Dead Man’s Folly
5. A Caribbean Mystery
6. Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
7. Taken at the Flood
8. The Murder at the Vicarage
9. Halloween Party
10.The Body in the Library
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OK, let’s have a go…
1. Must be Death On The Nile as a gun isn’t involved in Appointment With Death
2. Snakes… don’t recall a snakebite Christie, so I’ll guess Death Comes As The End
3. Must be Cards On The Table
4. It’s looks like another Mediterranean one, but from the building the victim is in, I’ll guess Dead Man’s Folly instead.
5. No idea. Nemesis?
6. From the holly, Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
7. Taken At The Flood?
Now I know the last three so I’ll answer them cryptically so as not to spoil the fun. 8: TMATHV, 9: HP, 10: TBITL
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Just twigged what the eyeball one must be… I’m an idiot.
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Well it is a fairly odd one so I’m not surprised you were initially thrown, it’s foxed a few other people as well. When looking at the covers for the posts there were quite a number where if the title wasn’t attached to them I wouldn’t have had a clue which book they were for.
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Is anyone else dreaming about writing new novels to go with these outrageous covers?
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That is a very good idea for a short story writing competition. I could easily imagine a story being written along the H. G. Wells lines for book cover number 8 for example.
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