I have a stereotype of Agatha Christie based on the very few Hercule Poirot novels and short stories I have read thus far. The stereotype is that she writes classic Cozy Mysteries.

Cozy Mysteries are a sub-genre of crime fiction in which sex and violence occur offstage, the detective is usually an amateur sleuth, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community.

What I found, however, in Christie’s small short story “The Wife of the Kenite” was actually a very dark Noir story. Easily one of the darkest I have read in sometime.

“The Wife of the Kenite” is the story of a German spy on the run in the South African bush who is searching for a safe house where he can hide and prepare his escape back to Europe.

I hesitate to say much more about the plot for fear of giving too much away. Imagine if a Noir writer like Jim Thompson or Harry Whittington wrote with a British and Old Testament eye, that is what Christie writes in this unexpectedly, dark story.

If I have not already whet your Noir appetite, here is a very nourish paragraph from early in the story.

The woman nodded without speaking, staring at him with wide blue eyes. Schaefer drew a deep breath of relief, and looked back at her with a measure of appreciation. He admired the Dutch, wide-bosomed type such as this. A grand creature, with her full breast and her wide hips; not young, nearer forty than thirty, fair hair just touched with grey parted simply in the middle of her wide forehead, something grand and forceful about her, like a patriarch’s wife of old.