Christie's Sleuths: Superintendent Battle

Transcript

Speaker: Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke, and we both love mystery. Hi Brooke. Sarah, I'm so glad it's the day to talk mystery with you again. I love Fridays. It's the best day of the week.

Speaker: So today we're gonna talk about another one of Christie's lesser known sleuths, and that is Superintendent Battle. So I'll just give us a little introduction to this character that you've maybe never heard of before. Scotland Yard Police Superintendent Battle, whose first name was never revealed to us by Dame Agatha, appeared in five novels from 1925 to 1944. They were The Secret of Chimneys, The Seven Dials Mystery,

Speaker: cards on the table, murder is easy, and towards zero.

Speaker: Superintendent Battle is a calm, stoic police officer who sometimes takes advantage of his appearance to gain access to investigations. Similarly to how characters underestimate Ms. Marple since she's an elderly woman, characters in these stories assume Battle is just a simple and unobservant kind of jock of a cop, when in fact he's carefully investigating even when he appears to be uninterested.

Speaker: This is a nice twist since in other lighthearted mysteries, we often find law enforcement officers portrayed as a bumbling bunch, unable to solve the crime until the amateur sleuth swoops in and takes care of things.

Speaker: Christie turns this trend on its head, making the characters in her fictional world play out the stereotype, but having battle come out as the hero in the end. But make no mistake, he is a brute of a man. He's described many times with words such as square, wooden -faced, carved of wood, and out of the timber of a battleship.

Speaker: His mustache is big as well and impressive to even Poirot himself. The two characters appear together in Cards on the Table. Regarding his backstory and personal information, Battle is married, but readers don't learn this until the Seven Dials mystery when his spunky sidekick, Lady Eileen Brent, says to him, Superintendent Battle, you're a wonderful man. I'm sorry you're married already.

Speaker: As it is, I shall have to put up with Bill." In his last appearance in Toward Zero, Christie finally reveals that Battle's wife is named Mary and they have five children. In fact, their youngest, Sylvia, unwittingly provides an important clue to solving the mystery.

Speaker: As an interesting connection in Christie's 1963 The Clocks, it's hinted that a secret agent with the codename Colin Lamb is the son of the then -retired superintendent battle. Another of those Christieverse tidbits that we love so well, Sarah.

Speaker: The superintendent battle books are regularly thought of as thrillers rather than whodunnits. They have a satirical style, characters' names such as Inspector Badgeworthy and Battle himself reflect this, and they also have multiple complications, some with international consequences playing out.

Speaker: The Secret of Chimneys and the Seven Dials mystery both follow crimes committed at a mansion called Chimneys. And of the two, Seven Dials is more popular with Christie fans, probably because it follows battle and that aforementioned plucky young woman, Lady Brent, as they investigate a murder at her family home that uncovers an unexpected secret society known as the Seven Dials.

Speaker: In this adventure, they must track down the location of the secret society's meetings, and they discover that they're held in a London club with the same name. To me, this type of story is reminiscent of what Christie does in the Tommy and Tuppens books.

Speaker: As I mentioned, Superintendent Battle is the inspector who helped solve the case and arrest the villain in Christie's 1938 Murder is Easy. It was first adapted for TV in the US in 1982 and later for stage. Both of these renditions include Miss Marple as the sleuth, not Superintendent Battle.

Speaker: It seems that he wasn't a well -known enough sleuth to carry the adaptations. Even the current series, which began releasing in 2023, doesn't mention Poor Battle. Likewise, his story The Secret of Chimneys was adapted to a Ms. Marple movie for a 2010 TV episode.

Speaker: But Battle does make an on -screen appearance in the 1981 TV movie production of The Seven Dials Mystery. And will Superintendent Battle make an appearance in an upcoming Kenneth Branagh adaptation? Fans theorize that either of the two books could make exciting big screen debuts for the perpetually stoic superintendent.

Speaker: or even cards on the table, where one of London's richest men invites four possible murderers and four detectives to his lavish home to solve a murder. The detectives he invites are Superintendent Battle, Colonel Race, Ariadne Oliver, her first appearance in a Christie novel, and Hercule Poirot. Battle does his part in the investigations by interviewing each suspect and completing background checks on them.

Speaker: his role as a professional sleuth comes in handy in this way. Personally, this would be my pick for a movie, including Battle, but I do see a few problems in this. First, Ariadne Oliver's portrayal by Brana in A Haunting in Venice essentially precludes her from appearing in any more of his adaptations. And secondly, Brana didn't include Colonel Race in Death on the Nile, making

Speaker: An appearance of him in another story may be CMOD. Fans of Christie's books enjoy Superintendent Battle, noting that he's likeable and is believable as a working police officer. A Goodreads reviewer named Anne sums up this sleuth nicely. She writes,

Speaker: Superintendent Battle is the kind detective that stands back and interrogates people with a twitch of his eyebrows. He's there, working quietly behind the scenes to sniff out not only the murderer, but also whatever other secrets people are trying to keep from him. So Sarah, have you read any of the novels that include Superintendent Battle?

Speaker: I have Brooke. I've read Murder is Easy and The Secret of Chimneys. What about you? This week I read Murder is Easy or rather I listened and I really like this character. I find him, as the other fans have said, really likable. He's kind of that good guy.

Speaker: Yeah, I would agree with that assessment. He appears quite late in that book, if I remember correctly, it's been a while since I've read it. But she's done that with some Poirot novels where, you know, it's not until the final third that we actually see the sleuth.

Speaker: Exactly. Yeah. It's that trend that we're really, you know, I think starting to notice. And these are still, I mean, murder is easy as 1938. So not at the very beginning of her career, but, you know, considering the length of it, kind of her earlier stories. And I feel like that's something she was doing quite often then is letting the characters, the people involved in the mystery flounder a little bit and then her

Speaker: her signature sleuth comes in and helps straighten the story out. Yeah. And I actually think the same is true for chimneys. Like I don't think battle appears until like well into the mystery. Yeah.

Speaker: No, but I really enjoyed his character. I like that point that they make about that because he kind of seems, he's very unemotional and just kind of sitting there staring at someone when they're talking. And so people assume that he's not listening or he's not being imaginative or trying to solve the case when in fact he is.

Speaker: Um, I enjoyed that. I have to tell you, uh, you know, the big guy with the big mustache. I imagine battle as chief Quimby from inspector gadget. Is that a cartoon you've ever seen, Sarah? So yes, I remember watching inspector gadget when I was younger, but I don't specifically remember that character was chief Quimby his boss.

Speaker: Yeah, he's his boss. You'll have to look him up. See if you agree, if that both feels super intended battle for you. So you said you read Murder is Easy. Did you read any of the others? No, that's my only battle so far.

Speaker: Yeah, I definitely want to read some more of them and it almost seems like his stories are ones you would want to read in order as you kind of uncover a little bit more about him.

Speaker: I think it's interesting you were saying that there's kind of illusion to his son in one of the other books and that's one of the things I think we've talked about before that I really love about Agatha Christie and the way she kind of wove in. She really created that world, right? I love the idea of cards on the table.

Speaker: So you mentioned his son, and Superintendent Battle also has a nephew who works as an inspector for Scott Lundyard. And this really got me thinking, as you say, this Christi verse. So this must have been a sister's son, according to his surname.

Speaker: And so then I got to thinking, was their father, his sister and he, was it their father and inspector as well to have this nephew then want to follow in the trade? I think someone needs to write a prequel. That's a great idea.

Speaker: trace the family tree. So, you know, even though I've only read a couple of the the battle stories, he's one of those characters that I wonder why she didn't write more of. Do you have any ideas about that, Brooke?

Speaker: You know, I don't. I'm interested in this. And it kind of led me down a little rabbit hole, actually, because I was thinking about the order that she wrote each sleuth. And of course, we don't know for sure that she wrote them in the same order that she published them, although she was releasing a book a year. So it's pretty likely she was probably working on that and then publishing it.

Speaker: And I wanted to see if there was any pattern. I know that there was some reference in my research that part of the reason she would maybe take up battle or Parker Pine or some of these other lesser -known sleuths that we've talked about was kind of to take a break. This was a very heavy, Poirot time of her career, and we know that he was one of her

Speaker: harder characters to write, maybe she would get tired of him. So I, I kind of put together a list of the year that the book was published and who the sleuth was to see if I could find out if there was any pattern or, um, anything. And I don't know if anyone else would be as interested in this sort of nerdy endeavor that I did, but I have a color coded PDF and, um, we'll make that available to our newsletter subscribers if you're interested in, in seeing it too. But I didn't necessarily see a pattern.

Speaker: per se, but it was interesting to see the way it was broken up where there might be a string of marbles or Poirot's and then one of these other other characters as the lead or

Speaker: perhaps a book such as, and then there were none, where really there's not a specific sleuth at all. It's more of a thriller. Um, you also get to see like where the Mary Westmacots are and where they fall. And that's kind of an interesting thing to see. So, um, yeah, I can't say why, but I think that we said this about Parker Pine, like we probably would have liked more of him and I would like to have more superintendent battle as well.

Speaker: Well, I know that the Christie Estate has had other authors write, you know, Sophie Hannah writing Poirot and then the Book of Short Stories featuring Miss Marple with 12 different authors that was released in 2022.

Speaker: It would be really interesting to see if they commissioned someone to write, even if it's not another superintendent battle, but more Parker Pine or more Tommy and Tuppence, just to see if, you know, if that captures readers the way that the original stories did. Yeah, great point. I do think something that

Speaker: some of those other ones have in common is that they're not that they're not always the who done it's. And so maybe the, and probably now and in Christie's time to the, um, the commercial successes and what the audience really liked were her who done it's versus these more thriller esque, uh, titles, but

Speaker: I find it interesting that we never learned Battle's first name, but it reminded me how we never learned Mr. Satterthwaite's first name in the Harley Quinn stories either. Yeah, that's right. And those are both pretty important characters to those

Speaker: stories, right? That she would not name them is really interesting because Miss Marple, she's Jane and Poirot, he's obviously Urquul.

Speaker: Yeah, interesting. And just thinking about her process, did she know and just decided that that wasn't going to be part of the story? Or in her character development, was that just not an important piece of information about them? It's interesting to think about.

Speaker: You mentioned cards on the table, Sarah, and that is probably going to be my next read, including superintendent battle, because I just love the concept of having all those really big names sleuths in one room. That's a lot of personality packed in there. Um, I'm also a big Ariadne Oliver fan, so I would like to see her debut. And, um, and that's the title that, that Agatha first introduces her.

Speaker: Yeah, I think that might be one of the next ones that I pick up, too. Well, thank you, Brooke. This has been really interesting to learn a little bit more about Superintendent Battle. I wonder if we should assign him a name, given that Agatha Christie didn't. But maybe our listeners can suggest a name for him. Oh, yeah. And I'm going to see if Chief Quimby has a first name because we might just be able to hijack that one.

Speaker: Thank you, Sarah. And thank you all for listening today to Clued in Mystery. I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah. And we both love mystery.

Speaker: Clued In Mystery is written and produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers. If you liked what you heard, please consider telling a friend, leaving a review, or subscribing with your favorite podcast listening app. Visit our website at cluedinmystery .com to sign up for our newsletter, The Clued In Chronicle, or to join our paid membership, The Clued In Cartel. We're on social media at Clued In Mystery.