The Mysterious Mr Quin

Agatha Christie

1930

Right, first things first, okay; Agatha Christie is still acknowledged as the Queen of Crime Writing, so what's a review of one of her books doing on a site focused mainly on Science Fiction and Fantasy? Read on and find out!

As far as I am aware, these are the only stories involving Mr Quin, so who is he? These stories attempt to answer that question.

But first, a question for you; who's supposed to be Agatha Christie's favourite character?

The sagacious and dapper M. Hercule Poirot?

No.

The redoubtable and inquisitive Ms Marple, perhaps?

Wrong again I fear!

It's the mysterious Mr Harly Quin (and do bear that name in mind!).

But who is the mysterious Mr Quin?

To Mr Satterthwaite when they first encountered each other, he was just a passing motorist invited in to join the New Year celebrations when his car broke down. But his presence soon brought up the discussion of a decade old murder that had occurred in that very house. Mr Satterthwaite is easier to define; an elderly gentleman able to mix in the top levels of Society or the Arts with equal facility, but he's not a doer in his own right, preferring to sit back and observe rather than intervene directly.

Under the influence of Mr Quin, a change gradually comes over Mr Satterthwaite as he finds himself increasingly more involved in the events around him. From his role as a pure observer in 'The Coming of Mr Quin' through to 'The World's End' Mr Satterthwaite feels that his association with Mr Quin has been of mutual benefit; an obvious benefit to the lives they have brought back from the brink of despair and the lovers reunited of course, and Mr Satterthwaite has found that it's fun to interact with the world. The benefits to Mr Quin do not appear so obvious but it's becoming clear even to Mr Satterthwaite that Mr Quin is something other than he appears.

But it's the twelfth, and final story, 'Harlequin's Lane' that Mr Satterthwaite is finally touched in his own soul by Harly Quin and the true realisation of what he had been missing in his role of Observer led him to his despairing cry; "But I see things," he cried, "I may have only been a Looker-on at Life - but I see things that other people do not. You said so yourself, Mr Quin..."

But Mr Quin had vanished.

And you are left with a feeling that the world is a suddenly less bright and colder place.

Had the genre been around at the time that the book was written, it would clearly fall within the Magic Realism school, despite the underlying mysteries that link Mr Satterthwaite and Mr Quin.

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