Brief History of Agatha Christie, Queen of Crime

Agatha Christie’s 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 Christie’s 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 Christie’s life and fiction.