A Brief Guide To Agatha Christie

Agatha Christies 80 novels and short-story collections have sold over 2 billion copies in more than 45 languages, more than any other author. When Christie finally killed off her Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, the year before she herself died, that detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep in Christies words, received a full-page obituary in the New York Times, the only fictional character ever to have done so. From her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, a Poirot mystery, to her last, Sleeping Murder, featuring Miss Marple, Crawford explores Christies life and fiction.

Cawthorne examines recurring characters, such as Captain Arthur Hastings, Poirots Dr Watson; Chief Inspector Japp, his Lestrade, as well as other flat-footed policemen that Poirot outsmarts on his travels; his efficient secretary, Miss Felicity Lemon; another employee, George; and Ariadne Oliver, a humorous caricature of Christie herself.

He looks at the writers own fascinating: her work as a nurse during the First World War; her strange disappearance after her first husband asked for a divorce; and her exotic expeditions with her second husband, the archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan.

He examines the authors working life her inspirations, methods and oeuvre and provides biographies of her key characters, their attire, habits and methods, including Poirots relationships with women, particularly Countess Vera Rossakoff and Miss Amy Carnaby. In doing so, he sheds light on the genteel world of the country house and the Grand Tour between the wars.

He takes a look at the numerous adaptations of Christies stories for stage and screen, especially Poirots new life in the eponymous long-running and very successful TV series.