AGATHA CHRISTIE: First Lady of Crime

There's a passage in 'The Murder At the Vicarage', the first Miss Marple novel, in which the vicar's wife says to her husband: 'I make you frightfully uncomfortable and stir you up the wrong way the whole time, and yet you adore me madly.' Agatha Christie's genius is that she can seamlessly blend many opposite ends of many spectrums, the resolved and the ambiguous, the traditional and the revolutionary. Christie made herself into a name known from China where they preached at her rather puritanically to Nicaragua where they put Poirot on a postage stamp, and selling in the course of it all more books than anyone has been able to count. She was beyond doubt the First Lady of Crime, but how did she do it? A figure of mystery in her own life, even her Poirot who has a good claim to be among the most eccentric of fictional detectives, is in fact a well-judged omnium gatherum of what the ordinary person might expect an eccentric to be. The distinguished crime novelist and acclaimed critic H. R. F. Keating brings together a dozen noted writers from both sides of the Atlantic to throw light on the ever-intriguing Dame Agatha, analysing her art, explaining the reasons for her success, not just the books but also in film and theatre. Their responses are penetrating, affectionate, enthusiastic, analytical and even funny, and together they present revealing and exceptional insight into the world's most successful and popular crime writer. Includes contributions from Julian Symons, Michael Gilbert, William Weaver and Christianna Brand, all knowledgeable, talented authors and scholars in an outstanding collection. 246pp with list of Agatha Christie titles.