ABC谋杀案简介
Flora
你相信吗？世界上有如此的大胆的凶手，他竟敢挑战大侦探波洛的智慧！
黑斯廷斯上尉从阿根廷返回英格兰探访老友波洛先生的那天早上，波洛先生的桌子上就摆着这样一封信：
赫尔克里·波洛先生，
你乐意于解决那些令我们的可怜而愚蠢的英国警察们难以应付的迷案，不是吗？让我们瞧瞧，聪明的波洛先生，看看您到底有多聪明。也许您会发现这个坚果硬得难以敲碎。留意本月二十一日的安多弗（Andover）。
忠于您的ABC
来信者到底是谁？这封信的目的在何？这是恶作剧吗？还是疯子所为？
然而随后发生的事实却推翻了这些推论。
21日在安多弗（Andover），一位姓阿谢尔（Ascher）的老太太被杀死在自家的烟草店里，柜台上放着一本ABC铁路指南。
几天以后，波洛又收到第二封战书，随后在指定的日子饭店服务生巴纳德（Barnard）小姐被人用自己的腰带勒死在贝克斯希尔（Bexhill-on-Sea）的海滩上，她的身下，同样放着一本ABC铁路指南。
如果说开始的时候，波洛还只是感受到一点隐约的不安，那么，在第二件血案发生以后，他开始意识到这位挑战者是个不容忽视的对手。他决心要揪出这万恶的凶手，而苏格兰场也开始对这系列案件重视起来，协助波洛，预防下起血案的发生。
可是他们还是没能阻止惨案的继续，第三封信的地址没有写清楚导致了投递延误，当波洛收到信并匆匆赶往下个指定地点时，彻斯顿（Churston）的克拉克（Clarke）爵士已经被发现谋杀于海边小径上。
情况更加紧急了，不仅苏格兰场和波洛在侦察这个凶手的踪迹，受害者的亲属们也自发组织起来，希望能查出真凶，阻止他继续作恶，公众也密切地关注着这桩史无前例的罪案。
所以当第四封信到来，并宣布下一次作案地点时，不仅媒体给予了铺天盖地的报道，苏格兰场也部署了极大的警力来防止任何意外情况
那么罪犯他能得手吗？他的动机到底是什么？他是谁？
是那位碰巧出现在每个作案地点的亚历山大·波拿帕特·卡斯特（Alexander Bonaparte Cust）先生吗？他只是碰巧出现吗？
想揭开这一切的谜底么？那么就请阅读《ABC谋杀案》吧
本书一改阿婆以往故事将犯罪场所限定在某一固定空间的手法，是阿婆唯一一部开放式的小说。
1935年出版。
1966年MGM英国公司将其搬上大荧幕，名为《The Alphabet Murders》（字母谋杀案）。导演FRANK TASHLIN。主演：Tony Randall， Robert Morley，Anita Ekberg.其中客串的明星也不少：Margaret Rutherford（演过马小姐），Stringer Davis， Austin Trevor（第一个在荧幕上扮演波波的人。）因为阿婆对剧本不满，该剧拖延了两年才能开拍，不过大家好象都对波波的扮演者不满。
英文简介
The A.B.C Murders（1935）
"If you could order crime as one orders a dinner, what would you choose?"
Hercule Poirot: "A very simple crime. A crime with no complications. A crime of quiet domestic life... very unimpassioned... very intime. Supposing that four people sit down to play bridge and one, the odd man out, sits in a chair by the fire. At the end of the evening the man by the fire is found dead. One of the four, while he is a dummy, has gone over and killed him, and, intent on the play of the hand, the other three have not noticed. Ah, there would be a crime for you! Which of the four was it?"
The phone rings, ending Poirot's musing about simple domestic mayhem. Scotland Yard is on the line reporting the murder of Alice Ascher ofAndover, a poor, elderly shopkeeper. Poirot's worst fears are realized. A few days earlier he had received this letter:
Mr. Hercule Poirot—
You fancy yourself, don't you, at solving mysteries that are too difficult for your poor thickheaded British police? Let us see, Mr. Clever Poirot, just how clever you can be. Per0haps you'll find this nut too hard to crack. Look out for Andover on the 2ist of the month.
Yours, etc. A.B.C.
A madman.
More letters, more murders.
Betty Barnard, a flirty young waitress, strangled with her own belt on the beach at Bexhill. Sir Carmichael Clarke, wealthy collector of a Chinese art, clubbed to death in Churston. But at Doncaster in the dark of the Regal Cinema,perhaps our alliterative assassin errs, for the man fatally stabbed is named George Earlsfield.
The A. B.C. murderer leaves no physical clues except those he chooses to leave...an A.B.C. railway guide beside each body and the letters to Poirot announcing the date and city of each murder. The letters also taunt our proud little Belgian detective for not solving the mystery of A.B.C.
The English public is terrified and titillated by the A.B.C. maniac. Newspapers sprout headlines like "HE MAY BE IN YOUR TOWN." As Poirot noted at the Andover murder site, "What we saw was a mess of average human beings looking with intense interest at the spot where another human being had been done to death."
Poirot does little but think. A policeman observes that "Mr. Poirot done some good stuff in his time, but I think he's a bit ga ga now, sir."
But Poirot knows luck turns. "The gambler （and the murderer, who is, after all, only a supreme kind of gambler since what he risks is not money, but his life） often lacks intelligent anticipation. Because he has won he thinks he will continue to win! He does not leave the table in good time with his pockets full. So, in crime the murderer who is successful cannot conceive the possibility of not being successful! He takes to himself all the credit for a successful performance but....however carefully planned, no crime can be successful without luck."
And Poirot knows that it is just a matter of time. "Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions."
Of course Poirot separates incredible truth from plausible falsehood, delighting his beanbag, Captain Hastings, and us with such bon mots as "Speech, so a wise old Frenchman said to me, is an invention of man's to prevent him from thinking."
"Murder, I -have often noticed, is a great matchmaker."
"You yourself are English and yet you do not seem to appreciate the quality of the English reaction to a direct question. It is invariably one of suspicion and the natural result of reticence."
"Anonymous letters are written by women rather than by men."
"I am better than the police."
Dame Agatha gives us characters named Nurse Capstick, Witness Strange, and Alexander Bonaparte Cust. Her people say things like, "What's wrong with being an orphan? Sometimes it's a blessing in disguise. You might have a good-for-nothing father and a mother who drank..."
"It's all the noise and the speed nowadays — people can't stand it. I've always been sorry for mad people.. .their heads must feel so queer."
Poirot indignantly confronts the killer. "I consider your crime not an English crime at all...not above-board...not sporting..."
PHIL CLENDENEN