I will admit to having a rabid fascination with Agatha Christie's books. I was, perhaps, in late grade school or early middle school when my mother introduced me to her. Being homeschooled I read a lot. Unlike many homeschoolers who school for several hours then spend the rest of the day on their Nintendo, I schooled several hours then spent the rest of the day reading books.

Prior to Christie, the main mystery books that I read were of the "Boxcar Children" series, and later, The Hardy Boys. Both of those series have their merits (and the uncanny ability to continue to add volumes to the series in an unstoppable wave. Are they up to quadruple digits yet?), but I enjoyed the action those Hardy Boys novels offered. There was hardly a book that went by where half a dozen bad guys were shot, dangerous cars were sped around looping roads, or a building exploded into smithereens. Really, they were more adventure novels, but a kid of nine isn't going to give a crap what they were labeled, as long as it was fun.

Agatha Christie's novels, on the other hand, gave me a different side of fictional detectives. Her books are more toned down. While they are suspenseful, the suspense comes not from a car bomb, but from rising tension between well-crafted characters.

There are two main characters that occur throughout her novels, though never in the same book. Hercule Poirot, who is famous for using his "grey cells" to detect cases, and Miss Jane Marple who can figure out complex cases while sitting in an easy chair and knitting.

The Hercule Poirot books are often quicker paced and take place in various locations. For many of the books he has a side kick, Captain Hastings. They work in rather a "Sherlock Holmes and Watson" sort of way. Poirot is always in control and poor Hastings has no clue what is happening until the very end. Also appearing in many Poirot novels is a Scotland Yard man, Inspector Japp.

Miss Jane Marple books, on the other hand tend to have a home town feel to them. Most of her stories take place in the small town that she lives in, St. Mary's Mead. She is elderly, and in the later books can't get out much. She uses her knowledge of humans to profile suspects and figure out which one of them could have committed the crime. She gets her information through gossip and her old friend, Chief Inspector Craddock. There are more reoccurring characters in the Miss Marple novels since the stories mostly take place in the same town and, as a small town, has a handful of people in it.