Product Description

A collection of macabre mysteries, including the superlative story Witness for the Prosecution...Twelve unexplained phenomena with no apparent earthly explanation! A dog-shaped gunpowder mark; an omen from 'the other side'; a haunted house; a chilling seance; a case of split personalities; a recurring nightmare; an eerie wireless message; an elderly lady's hold over a young man; a disembodied cry of 'murder'; a young man's sudden amnesia; a levitation experience; a mysterious SOS. To discover the answers, delve into the supernatural storytelling of Agatha Christie.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #87087 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
'Twelve thrilling, chilling mysteries.' OBSERVER

About the Author
Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890 and became, quite simply, the best-selling novelist in history. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written towards the end of the First World War, introduced us to Hercule Poirot, who was to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes. She is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in 44 foreign languages. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays, and six novels under the name of Mary Westmacott.

Customer Reviews

A good read for those who like being scared.
This book is a brilliant collection of short stories all of which are extremely spine-chilling. Each story has a certain air of mystery surrounding it as well as a sensation of nightmare. The first story which is called'The hound of death' is about a woman who sees strange apparitions after the destrution of the convent in belgium where she was a nun. The story starts of seeming quite harmless but as it goes on it gets, more and more obvious that there is more to certain characters than meets the eye. The first story is just a taster for the other, even more mysterious tales which follow. This book is definitely not for those who suffer from nightmares or are scared easily. But you would have to have read it to know whether you are.

Tales of the Supernatural
This is a collection of twelve short stories, stories of unexplained phenomena, in most cases tales of the supernatural rather than detective stories.

Of the twelve stories I think The Witness for the Prosecution is the best. Agatha Christie later wrote a play based on this story which has subsequently been adapted for film and television. It's the story of Leonard Vole, a young man who has been arrested for the murder of an elderly lady, Miss Emily French. He befriended this rich lonely old woman who left him everything in her will. He protests his innocence and is astounded when Romaine (who lives with him as his wife) refuses to back up his story at the trial. It is up to his lawyer Mr Mayherne to get to the truth.

I also liked the more supernatural stories - those with no explanation and those where the supernatural either have natural, scientific explanations or are plain con tricks. The narrator in The Hound of Death is unsure of how to view the events during the First World War where a Belgian nun, Sister Marie Angelique is said to have caused her convent to explode when it was invaded by German soldiers.

There are stories of premonitions, intuition or a sixth sense, stories of seances, haunted houses, nightmares, amnesia and a very strange tale The Call of Wings in which a millionaire hears a tune, played by man with no legs.