Filthy rich and highly subversive – Agatha Christie was anything but a harmless old lady in a tweed suit
Do you feel that Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a bit of televisual homicide? Maybe a murder on the Orient Express, or a death on the Nile? Whether you prefer Kenneth Branagh, Peter Ustinov or the great Albert Finney in the role, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot seems as much a part of the festive season as the tree.
But, if you think about it, consuming crime during what’s supposed to be cosy family time at home is really a bit strange. Especially the dark horrors conjured up by Christie, the brilliant innovator, who wrote a landmark serial killer novel as early as the 1930s, and who could imagine a world where both victims and murderers could be children.
Agatha Christie’s publishers marketed her in her later life as a harmless-looking old lady in a tweed suit, the living embodiment of Miss Marple. But appearances are deceptive. Christie, as a woman, was filthy rich and highly subversive. And hardworking. During her long life, from 1890 to 1976, she wrote 80 books.
