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20 DAY CELEBRITY PHOTO CHALLENGE - DAY NINETEEN I’ve been awfully cavalier with this challenge and, I’m sorry. Besides, I don’t really know whose house I’d like to take a tour of. Maybe I’ll visit Graceland someday, but in fact, I’d rather see places where Hemingway and Faulkner lived. I’d visit Tennessee Williams’ house, and Truman Capote’s, and Harper Lee’s, and Eudora Welty’s, and Flannery O’Connor’s. And W.E.B Du Bois’. And Francis Scott and Zelda Fitzgrerald’s place in New York. And Norman Mailer’s. And now that it’s finally open to the public, I want to visit Greenway: Agatha Christie’s house in the Devon. I’ve already seen the beautiful gardens, but I want to walk in the room where she penned Death on the Nile. So, I guess I know: I want to see the places where my favorite authors have let their creative brains function, where they have invented wonderful tales to tell, where they have suffered writer’s block, where they have lived and loved and had terribly heated arguments and amazing sex, where they have been happy and sad, and where they have grown old (or not).
20 DAY CELEBRITY PHOTO CHALLENGE - DAY NINETEEN I’ve been awfully cavalier with this challenge and, I’m sorry. Besides, I don’t really know whose house I’d like to take a tour of. Maybe I’ll visit Graceland someday, but in fact, I’d rather see places where Hemingway and Faulkner lived. I’d visit Tennessee Williams’ house, and Truman Capote’s, and Harper Lee’s, and Eudora Welty’s, and Flannery O’Connor’s. And W.E.B Du Bois’. And Francis Scott and Zelda Fitzgrerald’s place in New York. And Norman Mailer’s. And now that it’s finally open to the public, I want to visit Greenway: Agatha Christie’s house in the Devon. I’ve already seen the beautiful gardens, but I want to walk in the room where she penned Death on the Nile. So, I guess I know: I want to see the places where my favorite authors have let their creative brains function, where they have invented wonderful tales to tell, where they have suffered writer’s block, where they have lived and loved and had terribly heated arguments and amazing sex, where they have been happy and sad, and where they have grown old (or not).

20 DAY CELEBRITY PHOTO CHALLENGE - DAY NINETEEN

I’ve been awfully cavalier with this challenge and, I’m sorry. Besides, I don’t really know whose house I’d like to take a tour of. Maybe I’ll visit Graceland someday, but in fact, I’d rather see places where Hemingway and Faulkner lived. I’d visit Tennessee Williams’ house, and Truman Capote’s, and Harper Lee’s, and Eudora Welty’s, and Flannery O’Connor’s. And W.E.B Du Bois’. And Francis Scott and Zelda Fitzgrerald’s place in New York. And Norman Mailer’s. And now that it’s finally open to the public, I want to visit Greenway: Agatha Christie’s house in the Devon. I’ve already seen the beautiful gardens, but I want to walk in the room where she penned Death on the Nile. So, I guess I know: I want to see the places where my favorite authors have let their creative brains function, where they have invented wonderful tales to tell, where they have suffered writer’s block, where they have lived and loved and had terribly heated arguments and amazing sex, where they have been happy and sad, and where they have grown old (or not).

Ordeal by Innocence

      

I’ve read a lot of Agatha Christie lately. Well, re-read is more like it. See, Dame Agatha is more to me than the undisputed Queen of Crime novels. She is an inspiration. She is also the one who wrote the first ‘adult’ book I ever read. I was eight, or nine maybe –yes, nine probably- and I went from Enid Blyton to murders with The Body in the Library. I’ve read most of what she wrote, all those murders thoroughly plotted and I’ve enjoyed the ride. More than that, I decided I wanted to be part of it and become a writer too. But that’s another story, the one I want to tell you about today is one of my favorite of hers. It doesn’t involve Poirot, or Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence or Parker Pyne. Ordeal by Innocence is a story told backwards, sort of, through flashbacks. The murder of Rachel Argyle has taken place a couple of years ago. Jacko Argyle, her adopted son, has been convicted, and hung. But one night, under a showering rain, Dr. Arthur Calgary knocks at the Argyles’ door. He is here to provide an alibi for Jacko who was with him at the time of the murder. The news should be relief for the family, but it isn’t. Evryone was too happy that Jacko, bad seed and constantly broke Jacko, was the one who killed their mother because she refused to pay for his debts. This is not an idyllic, loving family. The children were all adopted after the war, and Rachel wasn’t as generous and caring as she was authoritative and controlling. And if Jacko didn’t kill her, it means one of them did it and it’s not a pleasant idea. Arthur will investigate anyways, because he thinks he owes it to Jacko and that makes for a thrilling story. I loved it. I loved it because of that initial mistake, that missed opportunity that can’t be repaired. Like Lady Macbeth would say: ‘The deed is done and cannot be undone’. It seems unfair that Jacko was convicted and killed for a murder he didn’t commit, but is it really? He was not a likeable person, but did he deserve to die? Those are the questions Dame Agatha must have wondered about when she wrote that brilliant piece; and she now serves them to us. With a plate full of murders. Enjoy!

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