Agatha Christie – The Queen of Crime
The very first Agatha Christie book I ever read had languished in ‘the front room’ for ages before I took any notice of it. As this room was kept in a state of immaculate and chilly readiness for special occasions such as Christmas, I rarely ventured in, but on that particular day I had just finished my latest Famous Five book and was desperate for something else to read. I was eleven years old at the time and possessed of an unquenchable thirst for reading.
The glass-fronted bookcase that housed my parents’ books was a last resort. How could I have known that it contained a slim volume that bore within its pages the seeds of an incurable addiction? ‘Three Act Tragedy – with a murder in each act’ proclaimed the blurb.’
I selected it without any great expectation of enjoyment, read it within two days and was irrevocably hooked.
Since then I…