Agatha Christie

Commentary:

Agatha Christie is undisputedly the greatest mystery writer who ever lived, and she is thus often referred to as the ‘Queen of Crime’.  She is the best-selling fiction writer of all time, with over 2 billion copies of her books having been sold.  Starting from her first published novel in 1920 (The Mysterious Affair at Styles), she turned out an incredible body of work spanning more than 50 years.

Christie’s output until the mid-1960s was of consistently exceptional quality and covered three genres: novels, short stories and plays.  She created two iconic characters Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, who are widely known not just in the mystery genre but in all of literature.  (She also created many other memorable characters like Parker Pyne and Mr. Quin who appear in her short stories.)

Inevitably, age finally caught up with Agatha Christie in her final years, and her last few novels began to flag in quality, starting in the late 1960s.  However, she had characteristically planned two surprises for her readers by writing two novels in the 1940s to be published posthumously (Curtain and Sleeping Murder).  Needless to say, these final two novels did not disappoint when they were eventually published in the mid-1970s, and they were the perfect bookends to her astonishing career.

Over the years, there have been many movies and TV shows based on Agatha Christie’s books.  They vary greatly in quality and are not always faithful to Christie’s original story; however, there is one viewpoint that is near-unanimous among Agatha Christie fans: David Suchet is the definitive Hercule Poirot.  Episodes of the TV show Poirot starring David Suchet are available on YouTube, and I have provided the links to these episodes (along with many others) for the Hercule Poirot stories on my lists.

We are truly fortunate that so much of Agatha Christie’s work is easily accessible online in different forms of media.  Where available, I have provided links to E-books, audiobooks or TV shows based on her stories.   However, I recommend reading her books in printed form, the way she had originally intended.  (Most of her books should be available at your local library.)  If there are still some Agatha Christie books you haven’t read yet, you have a treat in store for you!