Agatha Christie’s most famous novels include And Then There Were None (1939), Murder on the Orient Express (1933), and The ABC Murders (1936). According to Christie, Clara believed she should not learn to read until she was eight; thanks to her curiosity, she was reading by the age of four.

Agatha Christie Limited still owns the worldwide rights for more than 80 of Christie's novels and short stories, 19 plays, and nearly 40 TV films. I thought it was clever and inspired, especially the sections that explore a mystery and the can solve it or check the answers in the back.

The last Tommy and Tuppence book, Postern of Fate, appeared in 1974, with the couple having aged in real time with Agatha. The first of her own stage works was Black Coffee, which received good reviews when it opened in the West End in late 1930. Christie did not limit herself to quaint English villages – the action might take place on a small island ( And Then There Were None), an aeroplane ( Death in the Clouds), a train ( Murder on the Orient Express), a steamship ( Death on the Nile), a smart London flat ( Cards on the Table), a resort in the West Indies ( A Caribbean Mystery), or an archaeological dig ( Murder in Mesopotamia) – but the circle of potential suspects is usually closed and intimate: family members, friends, servants, business associates, fellow travellers.

Film and television productions were also beginning to make their mark, including the 1945 classic telling of And Then There Were None from René Clair.

Miss Jane Marple was introduced in a series of short stories that began publication in December 1927 and were subsequently collected under the title The Thirteen Problems.