12/24/2023 0 Comments Shadow of a doubt uncanny![]() ![]() ![]() The central puzzle depends on impersonation, specifically on the ease with which a “glittering Harlequin” costume can be worn under a “loose Pierrot garb.” The killer masquerades as his victim** with the purpose of confusing the time of the murder. That same evening Lord Cronshow’s fiancée, actress Coco Courtnay, who had been his Columbine, dies of a cocaine overdose-a death which Poirot eventually exposes as another murder in the guise of “an accident cleverly engineered.”* very fond of the theatrical world” who is killed while wearing a Harlequin costume. The victim is Lord Cronshow, “fifth viscount, twenty-five years of age, rich. The milieu in “The Affair at the Victory Ball” is high-bohemia-meets-the-aristocracy, somewhat off Agatha Christie’s usual beat, while the affair in question is a mysterious stabbing at a costume party where all the attendees are dressed up as characters from the Commedia dell ’ Arte. Fifty-one years later it was included in Hercule Poirot’s Early Cases published in 1974 by Collins in the UK and Dodd Mead and Company in the USA. Out of Agatha Christie’s 150-plus short stories, the very first to see the light of day was “The Affair at the Victory Ball.” It was published in 1923 in The Sketch in the UK and in The Blue Book Magazine in the USA. The series includes a number of critically acclaimed novels, and we’ll have another short-story case for the pair later this year.- Janet Hutchings Also, don’t miss “Rassendyll’s Grave,” which forms part of the author’s series starring mystery writer Antonia Darcy and her husband, Major Payne. You may want to find copies of these and other Christie stories after reading the post. ![]() Raicho is an expert on Golden Age mysteries. He’s previously written several articles for this site about some of the key figures in the field, including Agatha Christie this time he elucidates Christie’s short stories-specifically the first and the last. ![]() A Golden-Age style mystery of the country-house variety, the story incorporates a fascinating twist to the form in that the house in question has been transported to modern Dubai, where the author currently lives and teaches. A look at the first published short story by Agatha Christie-and at her last Raicho Raichev’s story “Rassendyll’s Grave” appears in EQMM ’s current issue, May/June 2020. ![]()
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