Ah, I see where you are coming from now. Agatha Christie and her special punctuation. She isn't the first to re-write the grammar book. I think she made up those quote rules because she broke the rule about dialogue and needed a way to punctuate it. Or maybe some clever editor taught her to do that. As long as everyone understands that it is not standard grammar. But, I won't say it's wrong, I've seen plenty of made up grammar. Just read any literature from the Victorian age. Every single author made up their own grammar usage.

My personal pet peeve about altering grammar is Stephen King declaring a ban on all adverbs in literature. And the crazy part is everyone followed along just because he said so.

I think the one rule to stick with when you do it is: Stay consistent with the usage through the entire book.

Thanks for bringing this up. Good stuff.

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Wolfenshire, Moderator/Community Leader