Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, best known as Agatha Christie, is the Guinness World Record best-selling fiction writer of all time. Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in Torquay, Devon, England on September 15, 1890. She married Col. Archibald Christie in 1914 and they had one daughter together. She was named a Dame of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 1971 for her contributions to literature. Christie died in January 1976.
Agatha Christie launched her career in writing in 1920 with her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920). In this book, Christie introduced one of her two best-known detectives, Hercule Poirot. She went on to write a total of 93 books and 17 plays; she was translated into 103 languages (even more than Shakespeare). Jane Marple "Miss Marple" was introduced in 1930 in what came to be known as Christie's best-written novel, Murder at the Vicarage (1930). During that same year, Christie wrote under the penname of Mary Westmacott.
This September, celebrate the "Queen of Crime" herself by reading one of her books. If you are more of a movie buff, we have included a list of available films and television shows based on Christie's books.
- Miss Marple
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Miss Marple encounters a compelling murder mystery in the sleepy little village of St. Mary Mead, where under the seemingly peaceful exterior of an English country village lurks intrigue, guilt, deception and death.
Colonel Protheroe, local magistrate and overbearing land-owner is the most detested man in the village. Everyone--even in the vicar--wishes he were dead. And very soon he is--shot in the head in the vicar's own study. Faced with a surfeit of suspects, only the inscrutable Miss Marple can unravel the tangled web of clues that will lead to the unmasking of the killer.
It’s seven in the morning. The Bantrys wake to find the body of a young woman in their library. She is wearing an evening dress and heavy makeup, which is now smeared across her cheeks. But who is she? How did she get there? And what is the connection with another dead girl, whose charred remains are later discovered in an abandoned quarry?
The respectable Bantrys invite Miss Marple into their home to investigate. Amid rumors of scandal, she baits a clever trap to catch a ruthless killer.
The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn are agog with curiosity when the Gazette advertises “A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30 p.m.”
A childish practical joke? Or a spiteful hoax? Unable to resist the mysterious invitation, the locals arrive at Little Paddocks at the appointed time when, without warning, the lights go out and a gun is fired. When they come back on, a gruesome scene is revealed. An impossible crime? Only Miss Marple can unravel it.
When Miss Marple comes up from the country for a holiday in London, she finds what she’s looking for at Bertram’s Hotel: traditional décor, impeccable service, and an unmistakable atmosphere of danger behind the highly polished veneer.
Yet not even Miss Marple can foresee the violent chain of events set in motion when an eccentric guest makes his way to the airport on the wrong day…
- Hercule Poirot
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The Mysterious Affair at Styles: The First Hercule Poirot
A refugee of the Great War, Poirot is settling in England near Styles Court, the country estate of his wealthy benefactress, the elderly Emily Inglethorp. When Emily is poisoned and the authorities are baffled, Poirot puts his prodigious sleuthing skills to work.
Suspects are plentiful, including the victim’s much younger husband, her resentful stepsons, her longtime hired companion, a young family friend working as a nurse, and a London specialist on poisons who just happens to be visiting the nearby village. All of them have secrets they are desperate to keep, but none can outwit Poirot as he navigates the ingenious red herrings and plot twists that earned Agatha Christie her well-deserved reputation as the queen of mystery.
Just after midnight, the famous Orient Express is stopped in its tracks by a snowdrift. By morning, the millionaire Samuel Edward Ratchett lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. Without a shred of doubt, one of his fellow passengers is the murderer.
Isolated by the storm, detective Hercule Poirot must find the killer among a dozen of the dead man’s enemies, before the murderer decides to strike again.
When Alice Ascher is murdered in Andover, Hercule Poirot is already on to the clues. Alphabetically speaking, it's one down, twenty-five to go.There's a serial killer on the loose. His macabre calling card is to leave the ABC Railway guide beside each victim's body. But if A is for Alice Asher, bludgeoned to death in Andover; and B is for Betty Bernard, strangled with her belt on the beach at Bexhill; then who will Victim C be?
The tranquility of a luxury cruise along the Nile was shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway had been shot through the head. She was young, stylish, and beautiful. A girl who had everything...until she lost her life.
Hercule Poirot recalled an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger: “I’d like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger.” Yet under the searing heat of the Egyptian sun, nothing is ever quite what it seems.
Hercule Poirot doesn’t need all his detective skills to realize something is troubling his secretary, Miss Lemon—she has made three mistakes in a simple letter. It seems an outbreak of kleptomania at the student hostel in which her sister works is distracting his usually efficient assistant.
Deciding that desperate times call for desperate measures, the great detective agrees to investigate. Unknown to Poirot, however, desperation is a motive he shares with a killer...
- Films & Television Series
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Now retired and living in self-imposed exile in the world's most glamorous city, Poirot reluctantly attends a séance at a decaying, haunted palazzo. When one of the guests is murdered, the detective is thrust into a sinister world of shadows and secrets.
Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot's Egyptian vacation aboard a glamorous river steamer turns into a terrifying search for a murderer when a picture-perfect couple's idyllic honeymoon is tragically cut short.
A lavish trip through Europe quickly unfolds into a race against time to solve a murder aboard a train. When an avalanche stops the Orient Express dead in its tracks, the world's greatest detective -- Hercule Poirot -- arrives to interrogate all passengers and search for clues before the killer can strike again.
Agatha Christie: Poirot (television series)
Agatha Christie: Marple (television series)