Last Friday I set readers the challenge of guessing the titles of various Christie covers. The sneaky part though was that all of the covers where from translated editions. If you haven’t had a go already then head on over to the quiz first before reading any more of this post.
Cover 1: A Caribbean Mystery. This is a French edition of the novel, whose title reflects the role the Major has in the story i.e. he talks too much!
Cover 2: This is the cover of The Sittaford Mystery, again in a French edition, which hones in on an important time in the book.
Cover 3: The Man in the Brown Suit (French edition).
Cover 4: Sad Cypress. This is a German edition of the novel, where the what I presume are sandwiches on the plate look like oversized paracetamol tablets.
Cover 5: This is a Czech edition of Sleeping Murder.
Cover 6: The Hollow, which may be a surprise to some. It certainly was for me, trying to relate the cover picture to the plot. This is a Finnish edition.
Cover 7: A return to Germany with this edition of the Three Act Tragedy, which focuses on the murder method.
Cover 8: Murder at the Vicarage. This is a Spanish edition of the story, which like number 6, has you wondering how the cover fits with the book.
Cover 9: Three Blind Mice is another Spanish edition.
Cover 10: The Secret Adversary and this is a Turkish edition of the book. Never imagined Tommy with ginger hair it has to be said though.
Cover 11: And Then There Were None. I came across a lot of translated editions for this book, but I felt this was perhaps one of the trickier versions to guess, as it doesn’t emphasis the island setting.
Cover 12: A Pocket Full of Rye. This is a Polish version which hints at the nursery rhyme aspect of the book.
Cover 13: Elephants Can Remember. This is a quite a clever Portuguese edition of the novel, as I only today realised there is an elephant in the picture.
Cover 14: Death on the Nile or Battleship Head Lady and the Mystery of the Terrible Ear-Rings as JJ likes to call it. This is a Norwegian edition of the book.
Cover 15: Peril at End House. A similarity in style between this book and the previous one may have given you the hint that this is also a Norwegian version of the story.
Cover 16: The Body in the Library. This is a Dutch edition which has gone across the grain and avoided clichés of libraries and books and instead gone for focusing on one of the victims.
Cover 17: Crooked House. This is a Swedish cover which definitely gets to the heart of the story quite succinctly.
Cover 18: Nemesis. A Ukrainian edition which hones in a small aspect of the case.
Cover 19: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe. A Russian edition which reflects the novel’s initial setting at the dentist.
crossexaminingcrime 
I must say I found this quiz especially challenging. I could guess some of the covers that depicted key elements faithfully, but there were covers that went down a cryptic route…
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Well, given the cryptic nature of even the English-language Tom Adams covers — plus the tendency to change titles in different countries to emphasise elements of the plot — I think anyone who got more than about five of these can be delighted… 😀
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Yeah some of those Scandi ones were a bit baffling.
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It is interesting to see that both the German translations give the title as the poison used.
Morphium (Morphine) for Sad Cypress and Nikotin (Nicotine) for Three Act Tragedy.
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That’s an interesting point. I wonder if occurred in more German translations of Christie or whether it was just those two.
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Three Act Tragedy is the only novel where nicotine is used. Hence the German title gives a good hint !
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A very original idea for a quiz! I enjoyed it primarily because I tried to guess first before translating the title. But as I said most of the translations are of no help at all unless you know the books inside and out. And I’m not one of those fans. I was sure that the poison in Sad Cypress was Veronal, not morphine. Oh well… I’m one of the oldsters around here. Memory is not what it used to be.
I would’ve fired the designers of the book covers used for #6 and #14. Neither of them are accurate. The Karnak,/I> was a steamship cabin cruiser specifically designed for use on rivers. The one on the cover looks like a commercial freighter or a fishing boat. But “She Followed” is a kind of nifty alternate title for DEATH ON THE NILE. The cover for the Finnish edition of THE HOLLOW is 100% wrong. The murder weapon is a revolver. There were no gun sights with crosshairs made for revolvers when the book was written. (I’ve since learned there are indeed modern gun sights for handguns. Apparently some people hunt animals with handguns!) But for godssake, where is the swimming pool?
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My blog spammed this comment for some reason best known to itself! Only just seen it.
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The word morphine is used at least 50 times in Sad Cypress !
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I can’t believe THE HOLLOW was right! I would’ve fired the artist for that horrible and inaccurate cover. The murder weapon is a revolver. And for godssake, where is the swimming pool? Also that commercial fishing boat on the cover of the Norwegian DEATH ON THE NILE is ridiculous. Nothing like the Karnak, a steamship cruiser specifically designed for travel on a river. Fire that artist, too! But I have to say I sort of like the odd alternate title of SHE FOLLOWED. It fits perfectly.
Fun and original quiz, Kate! Thanks for an out-of-the-box-thinking type of challenge.
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haha yes I think The Hollow is probably the worst cover in terms of relating to the actual plot. Glad you enjoyed the quiz.
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I initially didn’t like the cover for ‘Sleeping Murder’ – found it to be too generic, and better suited for ‘Towards Zero’. And then I realised which scene in ‘Sleeping Murder’ it was alluding to…
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Great idea for a quiz, beautifully executed. I got about half right, and there were some surprises.
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