14 Eylül 2007 Cuma

The Thirteen problems

One Tuesday evening a group gathers at Miss Marple's house and the conversation turns to unsolved crimes...


...The case of the disappearing bloodstains; the thief who committed his crime twice over; the message on the death-bed of a poisoned man which read 'heap of fish'; the strange case of the invisible will; a spiritualist who warned that 'Blue Geranium' meant death...


Now pit your wits against the powers of deduction of the 'Tuesday Night Club'.

'The plots are so good that one marvels...most of them would have made a full length thriller'

DAILY MIRROR

They Came to Baghdad

A large number of persons.
A large quantity of jewels.
Enormous sums of money have disappeared.
Confirmation of the manufacture of a secret weapon has been obtained by a British agent. All the persons concerned were meeting in Baghdad and the code was 'A white camel loaded with oats is coming over the pass'.

'The most satisfying novel from one of the most satisfying novelists'
NEW YORK TIMES

Postern of Fate

Tommy and Tuppence Beresford have just bought an old house in a small English village. They talk to the neighbors as any newcomers would, about the house and its previous owners.
And Mary Jordan clearly did not die naturally - but why should a crime committed sixty years ago put the beresford's lives into such danger...

'The empress of crime novel'
SUNDAY EXPRESS

Passenger to Frankfurt

When a bored diplomat is approached in a bleak airport by a woman whose life is in danger, his interest is aroused. In a moment of weakness, he agrees to lend her his passport and boarding ticket.

Suddenly, Stafford Nye's own life is on the line. For he has unwittingly entered a web of international intrigue, from which the only escape is to outwit the Countess von Waldsausen - a power-crazed spider, hell-bent on world domination.


'It is not an impossible story - it is only a fantastic one'
AGATHA CHRISTIE

Partners in Crime

The scene of the crime...

The man rushed out of the house muttering with a kind of dreadful repetition, 'My God! My God! My God!'
His face was white and twisted, he staggered like a drunken man. Tuppence drew her finger absently across the gate-post.
'He must have put his hand across some wet red paint somewhere', she said idly.
But when Tommy and Tuppence went upstairs, they found a motionless figure in black and ermine stretched on the sofa. The beautiful face was untouched. The wound was on the side of the head. A heavy blow had crushed in the skull, blood dripped slowly on to the floor - but the wound itself had long ceased to bleed...

Parker Pyne Investigates

Are you happy? If not consult Mr Parker Pyne...
The advertisement appears in The Times every morning. Some readers ignore it. Some chuckle, and read on. And just a few make their way to Mr Parker Pyne's modest office, including:
The Middle-aged Wife
The Unappreciated Husband
The Discontented Soldier
The Beautiful Jewel Thief
The Bored Sahib...
and seven more unhappy people, bringing with them baffling and intriguing cases for the world's most unusual detective.

The Pale Horse

The Pale Horse was a converted Tudor inn tucked away in an English village, inhabited by the local witch, a learned female occultist and an inane medium draped in saris and beads.
Mark Easterbrook might have dismissed them as three harmless fools - if he had not suspected that the house was the headquarters of a gang that specialized in the removal of rich, unwanted relatives...

'Wholesale murder by black magic...highly ingenious, wholly enjoyable'
EVENING STANDARD

'The set-up is brilliantly ingenious...one of Miss Christie's best books for some time'
DAILY TELEGRAPH

'A really stunning conclusion, the finishing touch of master hand'
SCOTSMAN

One, Two, Buckle my Shoe

It was shortly after his 12:30 appointment that Dr. Morley was found with a bullet through his right temple. The gun was on the floor beside him. The authorities were satisfied that the amiable old dentist had shot himself. Hercules Poirot was not. But who could have murdered him? One of DR. Morley's glamorous patients? His hard-drinking partner? His secretary's disgruntled boyfriend? All Poirot has is a hunch, too many clues, and a killer who will not be satisfied with only one victim.

N or M?

The war has not changed Sans Souci, the prim seaside boarding house. It is still patronized by retired army men, gossipy old ladies and young people in love.

But one of them is a spy: the leader of the 'fifth column' of a highly-placed traitors who will seize power when Hitler invades England. So the irrepressible Beresfords, Tommy and Tuppence, come to live at San Souci...

'A nice surprise finish...all-round entertainment.'
OBSERVER

'As ingenious as ever.'
GUARDIAN

Murder on the Links

"For God's sake, come!"...The appeal for help arrived too late. Monsieur Renauld lay dead on the golf course just days after Hercules Poirot had received his letter. There was no lack of suspects:Renauld has possessed a plundered fortune, both a wife and a mistress, and an estranged son. But just when police think they have the culprit, the brilliant Belgian detective assures them that all is not as it seems. And the next murder proves him right.

Murder is Easy

Miss Pinkerton was convinced...
'Murder? Are you quite sure you weren't mistaken?'
Luke asked gently.
'I might have been the first time, but not the second, or the third, or the fourth...After that one knows...'
Within hours Miss Pinkerton is hit by the car, a week later a sixth victim has another tragic 'accident.'
And Luke Fitzwilliam sets out, reluctantly, to trap a mass-murderer...

'A real teaser'
EVENING NEWS

'Suspense, mystery, romance and an agreeable touch of the macabre'
GUARDIAN

A Murder Is Announced

The ad in the local paper is a joke, of course.

In bad taste, of course.

But none of Miss Blacklock's friends can resist calling on her at the appointed hour. Certainly not Miss Marple...

At 6.30 precisely, the lights go out.

'The most ingenious story she has written.'
DAILY EXPRESS
A super-smooth Christie.'
NEW YORK TIMES

Murder in the Mews

Guy Fawkes Night

A Perfect night for murder, as Inspector Japp remarked to Hercules Poirot. Someone else agreed with him. Next morning, young Mrs Allen was found dead in her mews house. Her murderer had tried to make it look like a suicide.

But he had not reckoned on Hercules Poirot, who solved the murder in the Mews and three more perplexing cases with his usual dazzling brilliance.

'All four tales are admirable entertainment...her solutions are unexpected and satisfying.'
DAILY MAIL

13 Eylül 2007 Perşembe

The Moving Finger

Lymstock was a town with more than its share of shameful secrets - a town where even a sudden outbreak of anonymous hate-mail caused only a minor stir.

But all of that changed when one of the recipients, Mrs Symmington, committed suicide. Her final note said 'I can't go on'. Only Miss Marple questioned the coroners verdict of suicide. Was this the work of a poison-pen? Or of a poisoner?

'Beyond all doubt the puzzle in The Moving Finger is fit for experts.'
THE TIMES

Miss Marple's Final Cases

The lady from St.Mary Mead is back.
She requires all her powers of detection to solve the six cases presented here:

the man found dying in the church sanctuary;

the puzzle of Uncle Henry's hidden legacy;

the question of the murderer with the tape-measure;

the curious conduct of the caretaker;

the case of Miss Skinner's maid;

the baffling mystery of the stabbing of Mrs Rhodes.

'The Queen of Crime fiction the world over'
OBSERVER

The Listerdale Mystery

Twelve tantalizing cases...

the curious disappearance of Lord Listerdale;
a newlyweds fear of her ex-fiance;
a strange encounter on a train;
a domestic murder investigation;
a mild man's sudden personality change;
a retired inspector's hunt far a murderers;
a young woman's impersonation of a duchess;
a necklace hidden in a basket of cherries;
a mystery writer's arrest for murder;
an astonishing marriage proposal;
a sopranos hatred for a baritone;
and the case of the Rajah's emerald.

All have one thing in common: the skillful hand of Agatha Christie.


'They are, without exception, the work of an experienced and artful cook'
TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

The Labours of Hercules

In appearance Hercules Poirot hardly resembled an ancient Greek hero. Yet - reasoned the detective - like Hercules he had been responsible for ridding society of some of its most unpleasant monsters.

So, in the period before he retired, Poirot made up his mind to accept just twelve more cases: his self-imposed 'Labours'. Each would go down in the annals of crime as a heroic feat of deduction.

'Twelve little masterpieces of detection. Poirot and Agatha Christie at their inimitable best.'
SUNDAY EXPRESS

The Hound of Death

The collection of Agatha Christie's stories of the macabre and occult.
THE RED SIGNAL
where an omen from 'the other side' unmask s an insane killer...
THE LAMP
in which the unhappy spirit of a child lingers in a haunted house...
THE LAST SEANCE
in which a grieving mother sees her daughter return from the dead - in body as well as spirit
THE HOUND OF DEATH
where a convent blows up - and on the remaining wall is left a black powder mark, in the shape of a great dog...

and eight other spine - shilling mysteries.

The Hollow

Hercules Poirot thought the joke in poor taste, not to be expected of his gracious hosts, Lord and Lady Angkatell. At the edge of the swimming pool lay a man in a puddle of red paint, and standing over him, pistol in hand, was a woman feigning hysteria. But Poirot quickly learned it was no charade. The paint was blood, the corpse was real, and a pleasant country weekend had turned into one of the legendary detectives most baffling cases.

Five Little Pigs

Amyas Crale had been famous as a painter...and infamous as a lover. His fiery wife, Caroline, had been jealous as she was devoted. So naturally it was she who was tried and convicted for his murder. Now their daughter, Carla, presents the brilliant Hercules Poirot with the greatest challenge of his career - to clear her mother's name by finding the fatal flaw in what, after sixteen years, appears to be the perfect crime!

Elephants Can Remember


Hercules Poirot stood on the cliff overlooking the rocks below and the sea breaking against them. Here, where he stood, the bodies of a husband and wife had been found. Here, three weeks before that, a woman had walked in her sleep and fallen to death.

Why had these things happened?

'A classic example of the ingenious three-card trick that she has been playing on us for so many years'
SUNDAY EXPRESS

'Splendid...she tells us all we want to know and nothing that is irrelevant'
THE TIMES

Dumb Witness

Miss Arundell was rich. Miss Arundell was elderly. Miss Arundell had two nieces and a nephew, all of whom badly wanted money.
They all spent Easter with her, and during the weekend she had a curious accident. Perhaps it was the fault of her beloved terrier Bob - perhaps it wasn't.
She survived, but her suspicions were aroused. She wrote to Hercules Poirot, but by the time he received the letter - she was dead.

'Agatha Christie at her best'
DAILY MIRROR

'Delightful...a bevy of most excellent human creatures - not to mention the dumb witness himself, little Bob, the wire-haired terrier'
EVENING NEWS

'One of Poirot's most brilliant achievements'
GLASGOW HERALD

Death in the clouds

For the passengers on the noon flight from Paris to Croydon, a routine journey becomes a nightmare. In mid-air a brutal and ingenious murder is committed. One of them must be guilty of it.
But who?
Could it be the British businessman who is dangerously close to bankruptcy?

Or is it the writer of detective novels, trying out an idea for his latest book?

Or the countess whose passion for cocaine and gambling has already got her into deep trouble?

None of them is beyond suspicion. Not even Hercules Poirot himself. He must unravel this baffling mystery - if only to clear his own name.

Death comes as the End

It is Egypt in 2000 BC, where death gives meaning to life. At the foot of the cliff lies the broken, twisted body of Nofret, concubine ta a Ka-priest. Young, beautiful and venomous, most agree that she deserved to die like a snake.


Yet Renisenb, the priest's daughter, believes that the woman's death was not fate, but murder. Increasingly, she becomes convinced that the source of evil lurks within her own father's household.

'An ancient setting. An age-old crime. A timeless mystery.'

Dead Man's Folly

Sir George and Lady Stubs, are giving a garden party...with a difference. Arradne Oliver, well-known mystery writer, is to organize the main event - a Murder Hunt.

Every detail is arranged with her customary flair and ingenuity. The contestants are provided with a choice of lethal weapons...and the scene is set for murder.

But Arrandne Oliver is uncomfortable, something is not quite right, if only she knew what it was! She telephones her old friend, Hercules Poirot, for assistance.

The game begins, but the victim isn't 'playing dead'. For her, the hunt is over. For Hercules Poirot it is only just beginning...


'Agatha Christie is the acknowledged queen of crime fiction the world over.'
OBSERVER

The Clocks

Master sleuth Hercules Poirot has time on his hands, four clocks, all set for 4.13, and all left at the scene of murder.
In the tidy sitting-room Detective Inspector Herdcastle examines the assembled witnesses for clues - a blind lady, a young secretary and an innocent passer-by.
Poirot must find them first...but will he have time?

'Here is the grand-manner detective story in all its glory'
NEW YORK TIMES

'Superlative Christie...extremely ingenious'
THE BOOKMAN

Cat Among The Pigeons

Dear Mummy,

We had a murder last night. Miss Springer, the gym mistress. It happened in the middle of the night and the police came and this morning they're asking everybody questions.

Miss Chadwick asked us not to talk to anybody about it, but I thought you'd like to know.
With love, Jennifer


'Immensely enjoyable.'
DAILY EXPRESS

'Delightful.'
EVENING STANDARD

'Deliciously smooth upon the palate.'
SUNDAY TIMES

A Caribbean mystery

Miss Marple dozes in the West Indian sun: an old soldier talks of elephant-shooting and scandals.

Then he dies - and the deceptively frail detective investigates a most exotic murder...


'Liveliness...infectious zest...as good as anything Miss Christie has done!'
OBSERVER

'There is no more cunning player of the murder game than Agatha Christie'
SUNDAY TIMES

'Throws off the false clues and misleading events as only a master of the art can do'
NEW YORK TIMES

Cards on the Table

Mr. Shaitana collects snuff-boxes, Egyptian antiquities and murderers. Not convicted murderers('necessarily second rate') but the ones who got away with it. He invites Hercules Poirot round to meet his collection. Before the evening is over the collector is a corpse - stabbed to death by one of his own exhibits...


'The finest murder story of her career...Mrs Christie has never been more ingenious'
DAILY MAIL

'Brilliant'
OBSERVER

By the Pricking of My Thumbs

It was very unlikely beginning...

Tommy and Tuppence Beresford decided it was time to do their duty and visit his elderly and unpleasant aunt in her nursing home.
The result of that visit include a strange inheritance, a mysterious house, black magic, a missing tombstone and danger for redoubtable Tuppence.

'The most macabre and eerie Christie i have read for a long time'
SUNDAY EXPRESS

And Then There Were None

Ten Little Indian Boys Went Out To Dine
One Choked His Little Self And Then There Were Nine

Nine Little Indian Boys Sat Up Very Late
One Overslept Himself And Then There Were Eight

Eight Little Indian Boys Traveling In Devon
One Said He'd Stay There And Then There Were Seven

Seven Little Indian Boys Chopping Up Sticks
One Chopped Himself In Halves And Then There Were Six

Six Little Indian Boys Playing With A Hive
A Bubblebee Stung One And Then There Were Five

Five Little Indian Boys Going In For Law
One Got In Chancery And Then There Were Four

Four Little Indian Boys Going Out TO Sea
A Red Herring Swallowed One And Then There Were Three

Three Little Indian Boys Walking In The Zoo
A Big Bear Hugged One And Then There Were Two

Two Little Indian Boys Sitting In The Sun
One Got Frizzled Up And Then There Were One

One Little Indian Boy Left All Alone
He Went And Hanged Himself ANd Then There Were None

Appointment With Death

Into the valley of death...

Ahead, between the towering red cliffs of Petra, Sarah saw a cluster of tents and above them caves, hollowed out of the red rocks. She stared up at one of these which held a sitting figure. An idol? A gigantic squatting image? Her heart gave a sudden lurch of recognition... Gone, now, was the feeling of peace - of escape. Looming above her like an arch priestess of some forgotten cult, like a monstrous swollen female Buddha, was the figure of Mrs Boynton...

'Poirot has surpassed himself! Never before has he been so brilliant, so accurate, so fair and so logical.'
EVENING NEWS

'Twice as brilliant as Death on the Nile, which was entirely brilliant.'
OBSERVER

Novels featuring Miss Marple

* The Murder at the Vicarage (1930)
* The Body in the Library (1942)
* The Moving Finger (1943)
* A Murder is Announced (1950)
* They Do It with Mirrors, or Murder With Mirrors (1952)
* A Pocket Full of Rye (1953)
* 4.50 from Paddington, or What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw! (1957)
* The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, or The Mirror Crack'd (1962)
* A Caribbean Mystery (1964)
* At Bertram's Hotel (1965)
* Nemesis (1971)
* Sleeping Murder (written around 1940, published 1976)

Miss Marple

Miss Jane Marple is an elderly woman who lives in the little English village of St. Mary Mead. She looks like an ordinary old lady, dressed neatly in tweed and is frequently seen knitting or pulling weeds in her garden. Miss Marple sometimes comes across as confused or "fluffy", but when it comes to solving mysteries, she has a sharp logical mind. In the detective story tradition, she often embarrasses the local "professional" police by solving mysteries that have them stumped.

The name Miss Marple was derived from the name of the railway station in Marple, on the Manchester to Sheffield Hope Valley line, at which Agatha Christie was once delayed long enough to have actually noticed the sign.

The character of Jane Marple in the first Miss Marple book, The Murder at the Vicarage, is markedly different from how she would appear in later books. This early version of Miss Marple is a gleeful gossip and not an especially nice woman. In later books she becomes more modern and a kinder person.

Miss Marple never married and has no close living relatives. Vicarage introduced Miss Marple's nephew, the "well-known author" Raymond West. His wife Joan (initially called Joyce), a modern artist, was introduced in 1933 in The Thirteen Problems. Raymond tends to be overconfident in himself and underestimates Miss Marple's mental powers. In her later years, Miss Marple has a live-in companion named Cherry Baker.

Despite never having been married, The Murder at the Vicarage sheds light on a young Miss Marple. She reveals that she once loved a married man who wanted to leave his wife for her. He was called to World War I and Miss Marple made him promise not to have a divorce. He never came back from the war but was killed there and Miss Marple never married.

Miss Marple is able to solve difficult crimes not only because of her shrewd intelligence, but because St. Mary Mead, over her lifetime, has given her seemingly infinite examples of the negative side of human nature. No crime can arise without reminding Miss Marple of some parallel incident in the history of her time. Miss Marple's acquaintances are sometimes bored by her frequent analogies to people and events from St. Mary Mead, but these analogies often lead Miss Marple to a deeper realization about the true nature of a crime.

Miss Marple also had a remarkably thorough education, including some art courses that involved study of human anatomy through the study of human cadavers. Although she looks like a sweet, frail old woman, Miss Marple is not afraid of dead bodies and is not easily intimidated. She also has a remarkable ability to latch onto a casual comment and connect it to the case at hand.

This education, history, and experience are hinted at in the Margaret Rutherford films, in which Miss Marple mentions her awards at marksmanship and fencing (although these hints are played for comedic value).

Christie wrote a concluding novel to her Marple series, Sleeping Murder, in 1940. She locked it away in a bank vault so it would be safe if she was killed in The Blitz. The novel was not published until shortly after Christie's death in 1976, some thirty-six years after it was originally written. Sleeping Murder created some discrepancies in the timeline of the series, as characters who were killed off by Christie in previously published novels reappeared alive.

Death

Poirot dies from inevitable complications of a heart condition at the end of Curtain: Poirot's Last Case. By this point in his life he is wearing a wig and false moustache, and also seems to be afflicted by arthritis.

In the book the Curtain: Poirot's Last Case Hastings finds a manuscript written by Poirot, within the confines of the script is a confession that Poirot has committed murder.

He also states that since he has become something that he has always opposed and fought for he neglects to take his heart medication, which subsequently, causes his death.

With Norton unconscious, Poirot, whose incapacity had been faked (a trick for which he needed a temporary valet who did not know how healthy he was) moved the body back to Norton’s room in his wheelchair. Then, he disguised himself as Norton by removing his own wig, putting on Norton’s dressing-gown and ruffling up his grey hair. Poirot was the only short suspect at the house. With it established that Norton was alive after he left Poirot’s room, Poirot shot him – with perfect and unnecessary symmetry – in the centre of his forehead. He locked the room with a duplicate key that Hastings knew Poirot to possess; both Hastings and the reader would have assumed that the duplicate key was to Poirot's own room, but Poirot had changed rooms before Norton's arrival, and it was to this previous room that he had the key.

Poirot’s last actions were to write the confession and await his death, which he accelerated by moving amyl nitrite phials out of his own reach. His last wish is implicitly that Hastings will marry Elizabeth Cole: a final instance of the inveterate matchmaking that has characterised his entire career.

Retirement

There is a great deal of confusion about Poirot's retirement. Most of the cases covered by Poirot's private detective agency take place before his retirement to grow marrows, at which time he solves The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It has been said that twelve cases related in The Labours of Hercules (1947) must refer to a different retirement, but the fact that Poirot specifically says that he intends to grow marrows indicates that these stories also take place before Roger Ackroyd, and presumably Poirot closed his agency once he had completed them. Unfortunately, there is specific mention in "The Capture of Cerberus" to the fact that there has been a gap of twenty years between Poirot's previous meeting with Countess Rossakoff and this one. If the Labours precede the events in Roger Ackroyd, then the Roger Ackroyd case must have taken place around twenty years later than it was published, and so must any of the cases that refer to it. One alternative would be that having failed to grow marrows once, Poirot is determined to have another go, but this is specifically denied by Poirot himself. Another alternative would be to suggest that the Preface to the Labours takes place at one date but that the labours are completed over a matter of twenty years. None of the explanations is especially attractive.

In terms of a rudimentary chronology, Poirot speaks of retiring to grow marrows in Chapter 18 of The Big Four (1927), which places that novel out of published order before Roger Ackroyd. He declines to solve a case for the Home Secretary because he is retired in Chapter One of Peril at End House (1932). He is certainly retired at the time of Three Act Tragedy (1935) but he does not enjoy his retirement and comes repeatedly out of it thereafter when his curiosity is engaged. Nevertheless, he continues to employ his secretary, Miss Lemon, at the time of the cases retold in Hickory Dickory Dock and Dead Man's Folly, which take place in the mid-1950s. It is therefore better to assume that Christie provided no authoritative chronology for Poirot's retirement, but assumed that he could either be an active detective, a consulting detective or a retired detective as the needs of the immediate case required.

One thing that is consistent about Poirot's retirement is that his fame declines during it, so that in the later novels he is often disappointed when characters (especially younger characters) do not recognise either him or his name:

"I should, perhaps, Madame, tell you a little more about myself. I am Hercule Poirot."
The revelation left Mrs Summerhayes unmoved.
"What a lovely name," she said kindly. "Greek, isn't it?"

Career as a private detective

"I had called in at my friend Poirot's rooms to find him sadly overworked. So much had he become the rage that every rich woman who had mislaid a bracelet or lost a pet kitten rushed to secure the services of the great Hercule Poirot."

During the first world war, Poirot left Belgium for Britain as a refugee. It was here, on 16 July 1916, that he again met his lifelong friend, Captain Arthur Hastings, and solved the first of his cases to be published: The Mysterious Affair at Styles. After that case Poirot apparently came to the attention of the British secret service, and undertook cases for the British government, including foiling the attempted abduction of the Prime Minister.

After the war Poirot became a free agent and began undertaking civilian cases. He moved into what became both his home and work address, 56B Whitehaven Mansions, Sandhurst Square,London W1. It was chosen by Poirot for its symmetry. His first case was "The Affair at the Victory Ball", which saw Poirot enter the high society and begin his career as a private detective.

Between the first and second world wars, Poirot traveled all over Europe and the Middle East investigating crimes and murders. Most of his cases happened during this period and he was at the height of his powers at this point in his life. The Murder On the Links saw the Belgian pit his grey cells against a French murderer. In the Middle East he solved The Murder on the Orient Express (though the bulk of the story takes places in the territory of the former-Yugoslavia), the Death on the Nile, and the Murder in Mesopotamia with ease and even survived An Appointment with Death. However he did not travel to the Americas or Australia, probably due to his sea sickness.

"It is this villainous sea that troubles me! The mal de mer – it is horrible suffering!"

It was during this time he met the Countess Vera Rossakoff, a glamorous jewel thief. The history of the Countess is, like Poirot's, steeped in mystery. She claims to have been a member of the Russian Aristocracy during the Russian Revolution and suffered greatly as a result, but how much of that story is true is an open question. Even Poirot acknowledges that Rossakoff has told several wildy varying accounts of her early life. Poirot later became smitten with the woman and allowed her to escape justice.

"It is the misfortune of small, precise men always to hanker after large and flamboyant women. Poirot had never been able to rid himself of the fatal fascination that the Countess held for him."

Although letting the Countess escape may be morally questionable, this tendency to take the law into his own hands is far from unique. During the case of "The Nemean Lion", he sides with the criminal, Miss Amy Carnaby, and prevents her from having to face justice by blackmailing his client Sir Joseph Hoggins, who himself was plotting murder and was unwise enough to let Poirot discover this. Poirot even sent Miss Carnaby two hundred pounds as a final payoff before her dog kidnapping campaign came to an end. When dealing with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd he allows the murderer to escape justice through suicide and then ensures the truth was never known in order to spare the feelings of the murderer's relatives. In "The Augean Stables" he helps the government to cover up vast corruption, even though it might be considered more honest to let the truth come out.

After his cases in the Middle East, Poirot returned to Britain. Apart from some of the so-called "Labours of Hercules" (see next section) he very rarely traveled abroad during his later career.

Poirot's Poirot’s police years

"Gustave was not a policeman. I have dealt with policemen all my life and I know. He could pass as a detective to an outsider but not to a man who was a policeman himself." — Hercule Poirot in "The Erymanthian Boar" (1940).

As an adult, Poirot joined the Belgian police force. Very little mention is made in Christie's work about this part of his life, but in "The Nemean Lion" (1939) Poirot himself refers to a Belgian case of his in which "a wealthy soap manufacturer poisoned his wife in order to be free to marry his secretary". We do not know whether this case resulted in a successful prosecution or not; moreover, Poirot is not above lying in order to produce a particular effect in the person to whom he is speaking, so this evidence is not reliable.

Inspector Japp gives some insight into Poirot's career with the Belgian police when introducing him to a colleague:

"You've heard me speak of Mr Poirot? It was in 1904 he and I worked together – the Abercrombie forgery case – you remember he was run down in Brussels. Ah, those were the days Moosier. Then, do you remember "Baron" Altara? There was a pretty rogue for you! He eluded the clutches of half the police in Europe. But we nailed him in Antwerp – thanks to Mr. Poirot here."

Perhaps this is enough evidence to suggest that Poirot's police career was a successful one.

In the short story The Chocolate Box (1923) Poirot provides Captain Arthur Hastings with an account of what he considers to be his only failure. Poirot admits that he has failed to solve a crime "innumerable" times:

"I have been called in too late. Very often another, working towards the same goal, has arrived there first. Twice I have been struck down with illness just as I was on the point of success."

Nevertheless, he regards the case in "The Chocolate Box", which took place in 1893, as his only actual failure of detection. Again, however, it must be stressed that Poirot is not reliable as a narrator of his personal history and there is no evidence that Christie sketched it out in any depth.

It was also in this period that Poirot shot a man who was firing from a roof onto the public below.

Poirot has retired from the Belgian police force by the time that he meets Hastings in 1916 on the case retold in The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

It should be noted that Poirot is a French-speaking Belgian, i.e. a Walloon; but there can hardly be found any occasion where he refers to himself as such, or is so referred to by others. At the time of writing, at least of the earlier books where the character was defined, non-Belgians such as Agatha Christie were far less aware than nowadays of the deep linguistic divide in Belgian society.

Poirot's Family and childhood

It is difficult to draw any concrete conclusions about Poirot's family due to the fact that Poirot often supplies false or misleading information about himself or his background in order to assist him in obtaining information relevant to a particular case. In chapter 21 of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, for example, we learn that he has been talking about a mentally disabled nephew: this proves to be a ruse so that he can find out about homes for the mentally unfit … but that does not mean that Poirot does not have such a nephew. In Dumb Witness, he regales us with stories of his elderly invalid mother as a pretence to investigate the local nurses. In The Big Four Hastings believes that he meets Achille Poirot who (in an apparent parody of Mycroft Holmes) is evidently his smarter brother. On this occasion, Achille is almost certainly Poirot himself in disguise (Poirot speaks in Chapter 18 of having sent Achille "back to the land of myths"), but this does not conclusively demonstrate that Poirot does not have a brother, or even a brother called Achille. Any evidence regarding Poirot for which Poirot himself is the source is therefore most unreliable.

Poirot was apparently born in Spa, Belgium and, based on the conjecture that he was thirty at the time of his retirement from the Belgian police force at the time of the outbreak of the First World War, it is suggested that he was born in the mid 1880s. This is all extremely vague, as Poirot is thought to be an old man in his dotage even in the early Poirot novels, and in An Autobiography Christie admitted that she already imagined him to be an old man in 1920. (At the time, of course, she had no idea she would be going on writing Poirot books for many decades to come.) Much of the suggested dating for Poirot's age is therefore post-rationalisation on the part of those attempting to make sense of his extraordinarily long career.

Poirot is a Roman Catholic by birth, and retains a strong sense of Catholic morality later in life. Not much is known of Poirot’s childhood other than he once claimed in Three Act Tragedy to have been from a large family with little wealth. In Taken at the Flood, he further claimed to have been raised and educated by nuns, raising the possibility that he (and any siblings) were orphaned.

Georges

Georges (we are never told his last name) is a classic English valet and first entered Poirot’s employ in 1923 and didn’t leave his side until the 1970s, shortly before Poirot’s death. A competent, matter-of-fact man with an extensive knowledge of the English aristocracy and absolutely no imagination, Georges provides a steady contrast to Hastings.

Chief Inspector Japp

Japp is an Inspector from Scotland Yard and appears in many of the stories, trying to solve the cases Poirot is working on. Japp is an outward going, loud and sometimes inconsiderate man by nature and his relationship with the bourgeois Belgian is one of the stranger aspects of Poirot’s world. He first met Poirot in Belgium, 1904, during the Abercrombie Forgery and later that year joined forces again to hunt down a criminal known as Baron Altara. They also meet in England where Poirot often helps Japp solve a case and lets him take the credit in return for special favours. These favours usually entail being supplied with cases that would interest him.

Miss Lemon

Poirot's secretary, Miss Lemon, has few human weaknesses and the only two mistakes she is ever recorded making is a typing error during the events of Hickory Dickory Dock and the mis-mailing of an electric bill. Poirot described her as being "Unbelievably ugly and incredibly efficient. Anything that she mentioned as worth consideration usually was worth consideration." She is an expert on nearly everything and plans to create the perfect filing system. Interesting enough is the fact that she once worked for the government agent-turned-philanthropist, Parker Pyne. Whether this was during one of Poirot’s numerous retirements or before she entered his employ is unknown.

Ariadne Oliver

The frequently recurring detective novelist Ariadne Oliver is Agatha Christie's humorous self-caricature. Like Agatha Christie, she isn't overly fond of the detective she is most famous for creating – in Ariadne's case a Finn Sven Hjerson. We never learn about her husband but we know that she hates alcohol and public appearances and has a great fondness for apples until she is put off them by the events of the Hallowe’en party. She also has a habit of constantly changing her hairstyle and in every appearance by her much is made of the clothes and hats she wears. She has a maid called Milly who prevents the public adoration from becoming too much of a burden on her employer, but does nothing to prevent her aggravating employer from becoming too much of a burden on others.

She has authored over fifty six novels and she has a great dislike of people taking and modifying her story characters. She is also the only one in Poirot's universe to have noted that "It’s not natural for five or six people to be on the spot when B is murdered and all have a motive for killing B." She first met Poirot when they put their Cards on the Table and has been bothering him ever since.

Captain Arthur Hastings

Hastings first meets Poirot during his years as a private detective in Europe and almost immediately after they both arrive in England, becomes his life-long partner and appears in many of the novels and stories. Poirot’s view of Hastings was of a man with plenty of imagination but not a great deal of brains.

It must also be said that Hastings was a man who was capable of great bravery and courage when the road got rough, facing death unflinchingly when confronted by The Big Four and possessing unwavering loyalty towards Poirot. When forced to choose between Poirot and his wife in that novel, he chose Poirot.

The two were an airtight team until Hastings met and married Dulcie Duveen, a beautiful music hall performer half his age, which was not objectionable in the late Victorian, Edwardian world. They later emigrated to Argentina leaving Poirot behind as a "very unhappy old man." Poirot and Hastings are at last reunited in 'Curtain: Poirot's last case'.

Hercule Poirot ' s Methods

In The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Poirot operates as a fairly conventional, clue-based detective, depending on logic, which is represented in his vocabulary by two common phrases: his use of "the little grey cells" and "order and method". Irritating to Hastings (and, sometimes, to the reader) is the fact that Poirot will sometimes conceal from him important details of his plans, as in The Big Four where Hastings is kept in the dark throughout the climax. This aspect of Poirot is less evident in the later novels, partly because there is rarely a narrator so there is no one for Poirot to mislead.

As early as Murder on the Links, where he still largely depends on clues, Poirot mocks a rival detective who focuses on the traditional trail of clues that had been established in detective fiction by the example of Sherlock Holmes: footprints, fingerprints and cigar ash. From this point on he establishes himself as a psychological detective who proceeds not by a painstaking examination of the crime scene, but by enquiring either into the nature of the victim or the murderer. Central to his behaviour in the later novels is the underlying assumption that particular crimes are only committed by particular types of person.

Poirot's methods focus on getting people to talk. Early in the novels, he frequently casts himself in the role of "Papa Poirot", a benign confessor, especially to young women. Later he lies freely in order gain the confidences of other characters, either inventing his own reason for being interested in the case or a family excuse for pursuing a line of questioning.

"To this day Harold is not quite sure what made him suddenly pour out the whole story to a little man to whom he had only spoken a few minutes before."

Poirot is also willing to appear more foreign or vain than he really is in an effort to make people underestimate him. He admits as much:

"It is true that I can speak the exact, the idiomatic English. But, my friend, to speak the broken English is an enormous asset. It leads people to despise you. They say – a foreigner – he can't even speak English properly. Also I boast! An Englishman he says often, "A fellow who thinks as much of himself as that cannot be worth much. And so, you see, I put people off their guard."

In the later novels Christie often uses the word mountebank when Poirot is being assessed by other characters, showing that he has successfully passed himself off as a charlatan or fraud.

All these techniques help Poirot attain his principal target: "For in the long run, either through a lie, or through truth, people were bound to give themselves away …"

Hercule Poirot ' s Appearance and personal attributes

Here is how Captain Arthur Hastings first describes Poirot:

"He was hardly more than five feet four inches but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on one side. His moustache was very stiff and military. The neatness of his attire was almost incredible; I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound. Yet this quaint dandified little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his time one of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police."

In the later books, the limp is not mentioned. Poirot has dark hair, which he dyes later in life and green eyes that are repeatedly described as shining "like a cat's" when he is struck by a clever idea. Frequent mention is made of his patent-leather shoes, damage to which is frequently a subject of (for the reader, comical) misery on his part. Poirot's appearance, regarded as fastidious during his early career, is hopelessly out of fashion later in his career.

"The plane dropped slightly. "Mon estomac," thought Hercule Poirot, and closed his eyes determinedly."

Among Poirot's most significant personal attributes is the sensitivity of this stomach. He suffers from sea sickness, and in Death in the Clouds believes that his air sickness prevents him from being more alert at the time of the murder. Later in his life, we are told:

"Always a man who had taken his stomach seriously, he was reaping his reward in old age. Eating was not only a physical pleasure, it was also an intellectual research."

Poirot is extremely punctual and carries a turnip pocket watch almost to the end of his career.

Hercule Poirot ' s Popularity

His first published appearance was in The Mysterious Affair at Styles (published 1920) and his last was in Curtain (published 1975, the year before Christie died). On publication of this novel, Poirot was the only fictional character to be given an obituary in the New York Times; August 6, 1975 "Hercule Poirot is Dead; Famed Belgian Detective".

By 1930, Agatha Christie found Poirot 'insufferable' and by 1960, she felt that he was a 'detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep'. Yet the public loved him, and Christie refused to kill him off, claiming that it was her duty to produce what the public liked, and what the public liked was Poirot.

Hercule Poirot ' s Influences

His character was based on two other fictional detectives of the time: Marie Belloc Lowndes' Hercule Popeau and Frank Howel Evans' Monsieur Poiret, a retired French police officer living in London. A more obvious influence on the early Poirot stories is that of Arthur Conan Doyle. In An Autobiography Christie admits that "I was still writing in the Sherlock Holmes tradition – eccentric detective, stooge assistant, with a Lestrade-type Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Japp." Poirot also bears a striking resemblance to A. E. W. Mason's fictional detective – Inspector Hanaud of the French surete-who, first appearing in the 1910 novel "At the Villa Rose," predates the writing of the first Poirot novel by six years. In chapter 4 of the second Inspector Hanaud novel, "The House of the Arrow" (1924), Hanaud declares sanctimoniously to the heroine, "You are wise, Mademoiselle… For, after all, I am Hanaud. There is only one."

Poirot's being a Belgian, unlike the above-mentioned models, is clearly the result of the first book being written in 1916 (though only published in 1920). Not only did his coming from a country occupied by Germany provide a very good reason why such a skilled detective would be out of work and available to solve mysteries at an English country house, but also at the time of writing it was considered patriotic to express sympathy with the Belgians – since the invasion of their country had constituted Britain's casus belli for entering World War I.

Hercule Poirot

Hercule Poirot (pronounced in English [ɛʀkyl pwaʀo]) is a fictional Belgian detective created by Agatha Christie. Along with Miss Marple, Poirot is one of Christie's most famous and long-lived characters: he appeared in 39 novels and 50 short stories.

Poirot has been portrayed on screen, for films and TV, by various actors including Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov, Ian Holm, Tony Randall, Alfred Molina and, most recently, and famously, David Suche

Unpublished material

  • Eugenia and Eugenics (stage play)
  • Snow Upon the Desert (romantic novel)
  • The Greenshore Folly (detective novella, featuring Hercule Poirot, expanded into the novel Dead Man's Folly)
  • Personal Call (supernatural radio play, featuring Inspector Narracott - a recording is in the British National Sound Archive)
  • The Woman and the Kenite (horror) An Italian translation is available on the internet La moglie del Kenita
  • Butter in a Lordly Dish (horror/detective radio play, adapted from The Woman and the Kenite)
  • The Green Gate (supernatural)
  • The War Bride (romantic/supernatural)
  • The Case of the Dog's Ball (short story, featuring Poirot, expanded to the novel Dumb Witness and related to the short story How Does your Garden Grow?)
  • Stronger than Death (supernatural)
  • Being So Very Wilful (romantic)
  • The Last Seance (stage play)
  • Someone at the Window (detective stage play, adapted from the short story The Dead Harlequin)

Video games

* 1988 The Scoop (published by Spinnaker Software and Telarium)
* 2005 Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None
* 2006 Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express
* 2007 Death on the Nile "I-Spy" hidden-object game
* 2007 Agatha Christie: Evil Under the Sun (announced)

Comics

HarperCollins began issuing a series of comic strip adaptations of Christie's work on July 16, 2007.

* 2007 Murder on the Orient Express Adapted by Francois Riviere, Illustrated by Solidor (Jean-François Miniac).
* 2007 Murder on the Links Adapted by Francois Riviere, Illustrated by Marc Piskic
* 2007 Death on the Nile Adapted by Francois Riviere, Illustrated by Solidor ( Jean-François Miniac).
* 2007 The Mystery of the Blue Train Adapted and illustrated by Marc Piskic
* 2007 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Adapted and illustrated by Bruno Lachard
* 2007 The Secret of Chimneys Adapted by Francois Riviere, Illustrated by Laurence Suhner

Agatha Christie's Poirot television series

Episodes include:

* 1990 Peril at End House
* 1990 The Mysterious Affair at Styles
* 1994 Hercule Poirot's Christmas
* 1995 Murder on the Links
* 1995 Hickory Dickory Dock
* 1996 Dumb Witness
* 2000 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
* 2000 Lord Edgware Dies
* 2001 Evil Under the Sun
* 2001 Murder in Mesopotamia
* 2004 Five Little Pigs
* 2004 Death on the Nile
* 2004 Sad Cypress
* 2004 The Hollow
* 2005 The Mystery of the Blue Train
* 2005 Cards on the Table
* 2005 Taken at the Flood
* 2006 After the Funeral

Television Adaptations

* 1938 Love from a Stranger (TV)
* 1947 Love from a Stranger (TV)
* 1949 Ten Little Indians
* 1959 Ten Little Indians
* 1970 Murder at the Vicarage
* 1980 Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
* 1982 Spider's Web
* 1982 The Seven Dials Mystery
* 1982 The Agatha Christie Hour
* 1982 Murder is Easy
* 1982 The Witness for the Prosecution
* 1983 The Secret Adversary
* 1983 Partners in Crime
* 1983 A Caribbean Mystery
* 1983 Sparkling Cyanide
* 1984 The Body in the Library
* 1985 Murder with Mirrors
* 1985 The Moving Finger
* 1985 A Murder Is Announced
* 1985 A Pocket Full of Rye
* 1985 Thirteen at Dinner
* 1986 Dead Man's Folly
* 1986 Murder in Three Acts
* 1986 Murder at the Vicarage
* 1987 Sleeping Murder
* 1987 At Bertram's Hotel
* 1987 Nemesis
* 1987 4.50 from Paddington
* 1989 The Man in the Brown Suit
* 1989 A Caribbean Mystery
* 1991 They Do It with Mirrors
* 1992 The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
* 1997 The Pale Horse
* 2001 Murder on the Orient Express
* 2003 Sparkling Cyanide
* 2004 The Body in the Library
* 2004 Murder at the Vicarage
* 2004 Appointment with Death
* 2005 A Murder is Announced
* 2005 Sleeping Murder
* 2006 The Moving Finger
* 2006 By the Pricking of My Thumbs
* 2006 The Sittaford Mystery
* 2007 Hercule Poirot's Christmas (A French film adaptation)
* 2007 Towards Zero
* 2007 Nemesis
* 2007 At Bertram's Hotel
* 2007 Ordeal by Innocence

Movie Adaptions

* 1928 The Passing of Mr. Quinn
* 1929 Die Abenteurer GmbH based on The Secret Adversary
* 1931 Alibi
* 1931 Black Coffee
* 1934 Lord Edgware Dies
* 1937 Love from a Stranger (Film)
* 1945 And Then There Were None
* 1947 Love from a Stranger (Film)
* 1957 Witness for the Prosecution
* 1960 The Spider's Web
* 1962 Murder, She Said (Based on 4.50 From Paddington)
* 1963 Murder at the Gallop (Based on After the Funeral)
* 1964 Murder Most Foul (Based on Mrs. McGinty's Dead)
* 1964 Murder Ahoy! (An original movie not based on any of the books, though it borrows some of the elements of They Do It with Mirrors)
* 1966 Ten Little Indians
* 1966 The Alphabet Murders (Based on The ABC Murders)
* 1972 Endless Night
* 1974 Murder on the Orient Express
* 1975 Ten Little Indians
* 1978 Death on the Nile
* 1980 The Mirror Crack'd
* 1982 Evil Under the Sun
* 1984 Ordeal by Innocence
* 1988 Appointment with Death
* 1987 Desyat Negrityat(Ten Little Niggers)
* 1989 Ten Little Indians

Plays adapted by other authors

* 1928 Alibi (dramatized from her novel by Michael Morton)
* 1936 Love from a Stranger (play) (dramatized by Frank Vosper from her short story Philomel Cottage)
* 1940 Peril at End House(dramatized from her novel by Arnold Ridley)
* 1949 Murder at the Vicarage (dramatized from her novel by Moie Charles and Barbara Toy)
* 1956 Towards Zero (dramatized from her novel by Gerard Verner)
* 1977 Murder at the Vicarage(dramatized from her novel by Leslie Darbon)
* 1981 Cards on the Table (dramatized from her novel by Leslie Darbon)
* 1992 Problem at Pollensa Bay
* 1993 Murder is Easy
* 2005 And Then There Were None

Radio Plays

* 1937 Yellow Iris
* 1947 Three Blind Mice Christie's celebrated stage play 'The Mousetrap' was based on this radio play.
* 1948 Butter In a Lordly Dish
* 1960 Personal Call (A BBC Radio recording of this play is known to exist)

Plays

* 1930 Black Coffee
* 1937 or 1939 A Daughter's a Daughter (never performed)
* 1943 And Then There Were None
* 1945 Appointment with Death
* 1946 Murder on the Nile/Hidden Horizon
* 1951 The Hollow
* 1952 The Mousetrap
* 1953 Witness for the Prosecution
* 1954 Spider's Web
* 1958 Verdict
* 1958 The Unexpected Guest
* 1960 Go Back for Murder
* 1962 Rule of Three
* 1972 Fiddler's Three (originally written as Fiddler's Five. Never published. The final play she wrote)
* 1973 Aknaton (written in 1937)

Works written as Mary Westmacott

* 1930 Giant's Bread
* 1934 Unfinished Portrait
* 1944 Absent in the Spring
* 1948 The Rose and the Yew Tree
* 1952 A Daughter's a Daughter
* 1956 The Burden

Plays adapted into novels by Charles Osborne

* 1998 Black Coffee
* 1999 The Unexpected Guest
* 2000 Spider's Web

Co-authored works

* 1930 Behind The Screen written together with Hugh Walpole, Dorothy L. Sayers, Anthony Berkeley, E. C. Bentley and Ronald Knox of the Detection Club. Published in 1983 in The Scoop and Behind The Screen.
* 1931 The Scoop written together with Dorothy L. Sayers, E. C. Bentley, Anthony Berkeley, Freeman Wills Crofts and Clemence Dane of the Detection Club. Published in 1983 in The Scoop and Behind The Screen.
* 1931 The Floating Admiral written together with G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers and certain other members of the Detection Club.

Collections of Short Stories

* 1924 Poirot Investigates (short stories: eleven in the UK, fourteen in the US)
* 1929 Partners in Crime (fifteen short stories; featuring Tommy and Tuppence)
* 1930 The Mysterious Mr. Quin (twelve short stories; introducing Mr. Harley Quin)
* 1932 The Thirteen Problems (thirteen short mysteries; featuring Miss Marple, also known as The Tuesday Club Murders)
* 1933 The Hound of Death (twelve short mysteries - UK only)
* 1934 The Listerdale mystery (twelve short mysteries - UK only)
* 1934 Parker Pyne Investigates (twelve short mysteries; introducing Parker Pyne and Ariadne Oliver, also known as Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective)
* 1937 Murder in the Mews (four short stories; featuring Hercule Poirot, also known as Dead Man's Mirror)
* 1939 Regatta Mystery and Other Stories (nine short stories - US only)
* 1947 The Labours of Hercules (twelve short mysteries; featuring Hercule Poirot)
* 1948 The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories (eleven short stories - US only)
* 1950 Three Blind Mice and Other Stories (nine short stories - US only)
* 1951 The Under Dog and Other Stories (nine short stories - US only)
* 1960 The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (six short stories - UK only)
* 1961 Double Sin and Other Stories (eight short stories - US only)
* 1971 The Golden Ball and Other Stories (fifteen short stories - US only)
* 1974 Poirot's Early Cases (eighteen short mysteries)
* 1979 Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories (eight short stories - UK only)
* 1991 Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories (eight short stories - UK only)
* 1997 The Harlequin Tea Set (nine short stories - US only)
* 1997 While the Light Lasts and Other Stories (nine short stories - UK only)

In popular culture

Christie has been portrayed on a number of occasions in film and television.

* The first occasion was the 1979 Agatha when Vanessa Redgrave played the part.
* Hilda Gobbi played the part in a 1980 Hungarian film, Kojak Budapesten.
* Peggy Ashcroft played the part in a 1986 TV play, Murder by the Book in which Ian Holm appeared as Poirot.
* Esme Lambert played the part in the Unreasonable Doubt episode of The Dead Zone, transmitted on July 14, 2002.
* Olivia Williams played the part in a BBC television programme entitled Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures which, like Agatha, revolved around the 1926 disappearance. It was transmitted on September 22, 2004.
* Aya Sugimoto played the part in an episode of a Japanese television series called Hyakunin no Ijin in 2006.
* On 10 August 2007, it was announced that Christie, played by actress Fenella Woolgar, would appear as a character in the 2008 season of the science fiction TV series Doctor Who.
* Michelle Trout will play the part in a US film, Lives and Deaths of the Poets, which is due for release in 2009.

Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple

Agatha Christie's first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920 and introduced the long-running character detective Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 30 of Christie's novels and 50 short stories.

Her other well known character, Miss Marple, was introduced in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930, and was based on Christie's grandmother.

During World War II, Christie wrote two novels intended as the last cases of these two great detectives, Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple, respectively. They were Curtain, in which Poirot is killed, and Sleeping Murder. Both books were sealed in a bank vault for over thirty years, and were released for publication by Christie only at the end of her life, when she realised that she could not write any more novels. These publications came on the heels of the success of the film version of Murder on the Orient Express in 1974.

Like Arthur Conan Doyle, Christie was to become increasingly tired of her detective, Poirot. In fact, by the end of the 1930s, Christie confided to her diary that she was finding Poirot “insufferable”, and by the 1960s she felt that he was an "an ego-centric creep". However, unlike Conan Doyle, Christie resisted the temptation to kill her detective off while he was still popular. She saw herself as an entertainer whose job was to produce what the public liked, and what the public liked was Poirot.

In contrast, Christie was fond of Miss Marple. However it is interesting to note that the Belgian detective’s titles outnumber the Marple titles by more than two to one.

Poirot is the only fictional character to have been given an obituary in The New York Times, following the publication of Curtain in 1975.

Following the great success of Curtain, Christie gave permission for the release of Sleeping Murder sometime in 1976, but died in January 1976 before the book could be released. This may explain some of the inconsistencies in the book with the rest of the Marple series — for example, Colonel Arthur Bantry, husband of Miss Marple's friend, Dolly, is still alive and well in Sleeping Murder (which, like Curtain, was written in the 1940s) despite the fact he is noted as having died in books that were written after but published before the posthumous release of Sleeping Murder in 1976—such as, The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side. It may be that Christie simply did not have time to revise the manuscript before she died. Miss Marple fared better than Poirot, since after solving the mystery in Sleeping Murder, she returns home to her regular life in Saint Mary Mead.

On an edition of Desert Island Discs in 2007, Brian Aldiss recounted how Agatha Christie told him that she wrote her books up to the last chapter, and then decided who the most unlikely suspect was. She would then go back and make the necessary changes to "frame" that person.

Biography

Agatha Christie was born as Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller in Torquay, Devon, to an American father and an English mother. She never held or claimed United States citizenship. Her father was Frederick Miller, a rich American stockbroker, and her mother was Clara Boehmer, a British aristocrat. Christie had a sister, Margaret Frary Miller (1879–1950), called Madge, eleven years her senior, and a brother, Louis Montant Miller (1880–1929), called Monty, ten years older than Christie. Her father died when she was very young. Her mother resorted to teaching her at home, encouraging her to write at a very young age. At the age of 16 she went to a school in Paris to study singing and piano.

Her first marriage, an unhappy one, was in 1914 to Colonel Archibald Christie, an aviator in the Royal Flying Corps. The couple had one daughter, Rosalind Hicks, and divorced in 1928.

During World War I she worked at a hospital and then a pharmacy, a job that influenced her work; many of the murders in her books are carried out with poison. (See also cyanide, ricin, and thallium.)

On 8 December 1926, while living in Sunningdale in Berkshire, she disappeared for ten days, causing great interest in the press. Her car was found in a chalk pit in Newland's Corner, Surrey. She was eventually found staying at the Swan Hydro (now the Old Swan hotel) in Harrogate under the name of the woman with whom her husband had recently admitted to having an affair. She claimed to have suffered a nervous breakdown and a fugue state caused by the death of her mother and her husband's infidelity. Opinions are still divided as to whether this was a publicity stunt. Public sentiment at the time was negative, with many feeling that an alleged publicity stunt had cost the taxpayers a substantial amount of money. A 1979 film, Agatha, starring Vanessa Redgrave as Christie, recounted a fictionalised version of the disappearance. Other media accounts of this event exist; it was featured on a segment of Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story, for example.

In 1930, Christie married a Roman Catholic (despite her divorce and her Anglican faith), the archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan. Mallowan was 14 years younger than Christie, and his travels with her contributed background to several of her novels set in the Middle East. Their marriage was happy in the early years, and endured despite Mallowan's many affairs in later life, notably with Barbara Parker, whom he married in 1977, the year after Christie's death. Other novels (such as And Then There Were None) were set in and around Torquay, Devon, where she was born. Christie's 1934 novel, Murder on the Orient Express was written in the Pera Palas hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, the southern terminus of the railroad. The hotel maintains Christie's room as a memorial to the author. The Greenway Estate in Devon, acquired by the couple as a summer residence in 1938, is now in the care of the National Trust. Christie often stayed at Abney Hall in Cheshire, which was owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts. She based at least two of her stories on the hall: The short story The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding which is in the story collection of the same name and the novel After the Funeral. "Abney became Agatha's greatest inspiration for country-house life, with all the servants and grandeur which have been woven into her plots. The descriptions of the fictional Styles, Chimneys, Stoneygates and the other houses in her stories are mostly Abney in various forms."
In 1971 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Agatha Christie died on 12 January 1976, at age 85, from natural causes, at Winterbrook House in the north of Cholsey parish, adjoining Wallingford in Oxfordshire (formerly Berkshire). She is buried in the nearby St Mary's Churchyard in Cholsey.

Christie's only child, Rosalind Hicks, died on 28 October 2004, also aged 85, from natural causes. Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard, now owns the copyright to his grandmother's works.

Queen of Crime


Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan, DBE (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976), mainly known as Agatha Christie, was an English crime fiction writer. She also wrote romance novels under the name Mary Westmacott, but is chiefly remembered for her 80 detective novels. Her work with these novels, particularly featuring detectives Hercule Poirot or Miss Jane Marple, have given her the title the 'Queen of Crime' and made her one of the most important and innovative writers in the development of the genre.

Christie has been called — by the Guinness Book of World Records, among others — the best-selling writer of books of all time, and the best-selling writer of any kind second only to William Shakespeare. An estimated one billion copies of her novels have been sold in English, and another billion in 103 other languages. As an example of her broad appeal, she is the all-time best-selling author in France, with over 40 million copies sold in French (as of 2003) versus 22 million for Emile Zola, the nearest contender.

Her stage play, The Mousetrap, holds the record for the longest run ever in London, opening at the Ambassadors Theatre on 25 November 1952, and as of 2007 is still running after more than 20,000 performances. In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honor, the Grand Master Award, and in the same year, Witness for the Prosecution was given an Edgar Award by the MWA, for Best Play. Most of her books and short stories have been filmed, some many times over (Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, 4.50 From Paddington), and many have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics.

In 1998, the control of the rights to most of the literary works of Agatha Christie passed to the company Chorion, when it purchased a majority 64% share in Agatha Christie Limited.