No other biography of Christie that I've read so powerfully summons up the atmosphere of Christie's own writing: that singular blend of menace and the mundane.
Whatever the excuse, it's wonderful to finally have Thompson's deep dive into Christie easily available. That's the book that ushered Hercule Poirot into the world. The resulting triumph of a biography, called Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life, was published a little over a decade ago in England, but is just now coming out here with a wobbly tie-in to the centenary of the completion of Christie's first novel, The Mysterious Affair At Styles. The Two-Way Book News: Agatha Christie And The Secret Of The Lost Lockbox Jewels Thompson was also able to interview family members, including Christie's daughter Rosalind, before her death. But as every dedicated mystery reader knows, a gifted investigator sees what most of us mere mortals are blind to.Ĭhristie biographer Laura Thompson not only sees Christie's life more lucidly, but she's had a lot more material to peruse - letters and scraps of personal writing tucked into drawers and suitcases at Christie's beloved house in Devon. Surely, by now, you'd think there's nothing more to discover. She was a resolutely private person and, so, has teased the legion of biographers who have been chipping away at her sphinxlike silence ever since she died in 1976. How?īoth of the books I'm recommending today are each, in their own ways, about cold cases.Īfter all, what could be colder than the mysteries surrounding the life of that pre-eminent Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie? Christie, by some calculations, is the second best-selling author of all time (beaten by a hair by Shakespeare).
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