Third Girl is a mystery novel by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in November 1966 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at eighteen shillings (18/-)

Robert Barnard: "One of Christie's more embarrassing attempts to haul herself abreast of the swinging 'sixties. Mrs Oliver plays a large part, detection a small one."

References to other works

The novel reintroduces Stillingfleet, a character from the short story The Dream and first published in book form in the UK in The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding in 1960, and Mr Goby, whose previous appearance had been in After the Funeral in 1953.

In Chapter 4, while Poirot is pretending he shares a military history with Sir Roderick, he makes reference to Colonel Race from novels such as Death on the Nile and Cards on the Table, as well as Inspector Giraud from Murder on the Links.

Adaptations for television

;British

A television adaptation by Peter Flannery for the series Agatha Christie's Poirot starring David Suchet as Poirot and Zoë Wanamaker as Ariadne Oliver was filmed in April and May 2008. It aired on 28 September 2008 on ITV. It contains significant alterations to the plot, including doing away with the character of Dr. Stillingfleet and with David's death, so that David ends up with Norma. They also cut the stepmother subplot and have Claudia be Andrew/Robert's secretary; she wishes to marry him, and he makes her an unwitting accomplice. Instead of drugging Norma to make her appear insane, Frances and Robert/Andrew play upon her own anxiety and PTSD related to finding her mother after she committed suicide when Norma was young. The murder that starts everything is of Norma's old nanny, rather than Andrew's mistress, although the motive is the same; it is made to appear as if she committed suicide in a similar method to Norma's mother, which brings back Norma's childhood trauma and guilt over not being able to save her. As is true with most of the later novels adapted for Agatha Christie's Poirot, the time period is kept vague rather than making it distinctly 1960s.

;French

The novel was also adapted as a 2017 episode of the French television series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie.

Publication history

  • 1966, Collins Crime Club (London), November 1966, Hardcover, 256 pp
  • 1967, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), 1967, Hardcover, 248 pp
  • 1968, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, Hardcover, 230 pp
  • 1968, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), Paperback, 190 pp
  • 1968, Pocket Books (New York), Paperback
  • 1979, Greenway edition of collected works (William Collins), Hardcover,
  • 2011, Harper paperbacks, 271 pp,

Magazine publication

In the US a condensed version of the novel appeared in the April 1967 (Volume 128, Number 6) issue of Redbook magazine with a photographic montage by Mike Cuesta.

International titles

This novel has been translated to various languages other than its original English. Over 20 are listed here. This is in keeping with the author's reputation for being the most translated author. <!-- please include translator, publisher, year, and ISBN to additions to this list, and fill in missing information for titles already on the list -->

  • Arabic: ألفتاة الثالثه
  • Bulgarian: Третото момиче /Tretoto momiche/
  • Croatian: Treća djevojka
  • Czech: Třetí dívka
  • Danish: Den tredje pige
  • Dutch: Het derde meisje
  • Finnish: Kolmas tyttö
  • French: La Troisième Fille
  • Georgian: მესამე გოგონა
  • German: Die vergessliche Mörderin
  • Greek: Το χαμόγελο της Μέδουσας
  • Hungarian: Harmadik lány and A harmadik lány
  • Indonesian: Gadis Ketiga
  • Italian: Sono un'assassina?
  • Japanese: 第三の女 (translated by Fusa OBI/小尾芙佐)
  • Norwegian: Den tredje piken
  • Persian: دختر سوم
  • Polish: Trzecia lokatorka
  • Portuguese (Brazil): A Terceira Moça
  • Portuguese (Portugal): Poirot e a Terceira Inquilina, later edition A Suspeita
  • Romanian: A treia fată
  • Russian: Третья девушка
  • Spanish: Tercera Muchacha
  • Swedish: Tredje Flickan
  • Turkish: Üçüncü kız

References

  • Third Girl at the official Agatha Christie website