Climatic arthashastra

In Agatha Christie’s celebrated ABC Murders, the plot centres on the search for a serial killer who selected his victims by the letters of the alphabet: a Mrs Ascher in Andover, a Miss Barnard in Bexhill-on-Sea, Sir Carmichael Clarke in Churston and a cinema goer in Doncaster. The case tested Hercule Poirot’s “little grey cells” until he realised that the series of apparently purposeless murders were aimed at drawing attention away from one particular killing.