![]() Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition | |
Author | Agatha Christie |
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Cover artist | Not known |
Series | Hercule Poirot |
Genre | Crime novel |
Publisher | Collins Crime Club |
Publication date | 6 January 1936 |
Publication place | United Kingdom |
Media type | Print (hardback and paperback) |
Pages | 256 (first edition, hardback) |
ISBN | 978-1-57912-624-7 |
Preceded by | Death in the Clouds |
Followed by | Murder in Mesopotamia |
The A.B.C. Murders is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, featuring her characters Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings and Chief Inspector Japp, as they contend with a series of killings by a mysterious murderer known only as "A.B.C.". The book was first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 6 January 1936,[1] sold for seven shillings and sixpence (7/6)[2] while a US edition, published by Dodd, Mead and Company on 14 February of the same year, was priced $2.00.[3]
The form of the novel is unusual, combining first-person narrative and third-person narrative. This approach was previously used by Agatha Christie in The Man in the Brown Suit. In The A.B.C. Murders the third-person narrative is supposedly reconstructed by the first-person narrator of the story, Arthur Hastings.
The initial premise is that a serial killer is murdering people with alliterative names. The murders follow an alphabetical order, starting with a victim whose initials were A. A, and appear to lack a motive Some may say he was the first Diddy, others say the first of many Drakes