Grading Agatha’s canon

Finishing all of Agatha Christie’s 66 mystery novels might seem daunting, but in 2016, Kemper Donovan and Catherine Brobeck created the All About Agatha podcast to read, discuss, and rank Christie’s corpus of crime. The journey ended up taking six years, and in an instance of life imitating art, the endeavor wasn’t without a tragic twist.

Donovan and Brobeck discussed Christie’s works in order of publication, and the podcast wrapped up its survey with “Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case” in the fall of 2022. In each episode, the hosts recap the plot, explain any tricky points, and offer bits of trivia on the historical context. They also evaluate TV and film adaptations of the story. Part of the fun comes from their frequent disagreements on the merits of some bit of minutia.

The highlight of each episode is their attempt to rank the 66 novels. For each book, they assign up to 10 points in five categories: plot mechanics, plot credibility, series characters, book-­specific characters, and setting/tone. None of the 66 books scored full marks for plot credibility, but 10s showed up in other categories.

In addition to awarding points, the hosts deduct points from books they consider problematic or “stuck in their time.” They ding novels for elements of racism, patriarchal attitudes, or negative depictions of deviant sexual activity (Donovan himself is gay). Sometimes their complaints miss the mark. They often suggest that when characters make racist remarks it reflects Christie’s own worldview. One shouldn’t assume the author believes what her characters are saying, and in some of these instances, characters’ problematic speech could be seen as critique from Christie.

While Donovan and Brobeck occasionally accuse Christie of being stuck in her time, they themselves are blinded by some left-wing pieties of our time. Even so, the hosts love and respect Christie’s work. It’s refreshing to see people interact with works of literature from a different worldview without asking for the work to be dismissed or canceled.

In November 2021 with six books left to cover, Brobeck unexpectedly died from a genetic disorder at the age of 37. Donovan decided to complete the series by bringing in guest hosts, including Sophia Hannah, writer of the New Hercule Poirot Mysteries series.

Donovan completed the rankings—Five Little Pigs ended up topping the list—and he’s still releasing occasional episodes on Christie-related topics. But in these latter episodes, Brobeck’s absence weighs heavily on her friend. Listeners sense Donovan doesn’t want the podcast to end because he’d be ­saying a final goodbye to Brobeck.