Agatha Christie was sure the world’s best selling crime writer. Moreover, she was an immensely prolific writer. 79 shot stories, 4 non-fiction ones and 19 plays were written by that strange woman. They were translated into 136 languages. Over 3 billion books by Agatha Christie were sold worldwide. She is popular for ingenuity of plots, which are classical murder mysteries: marooned places and a well-mannered murderer. Her way to present the stories was quite definite from that of her colleagues. At first her stories appealed to the readers’ detective inside, so you can’t find much blood and violence in her stories.
Agatha Christie created two major characters for her stories. Hercule Poirot, a Belgian, used to work in the Police, but by the time of the action he was already retired. He can be described as a funny little man taken by many readers as a comic. He had luxurious moustaches and he was really proud of them.
Miss Marple was absolutely opposite to Poirot. She wasn’t a professional and had never been one. She was just an old spinster, very modest but perceptive and not a flamboyant personality, who acted as a detective just by virtue of taking thought.
Agatha Christie’s favourite way of murdering was by poisoning. She accurately described the process because she had learned a lot about poisons and other chemicals during World War II, while working in a hospital.
The reader has to solve the mystery and decide who the murderer is hand-in-hand with the author. Most of the crimes were committed in some closed surroundings with a limited number of people to suspect. Finally the identity of the murderer is revealed and a hooked reader starts looking for another book by Agatha Christie.
Agatha Christie lived between 1890 and 1976. She started writing stories at a very early age, at first to entertain herself. However, she managed to become famous. Not many people know that she used to write under a pen-name of Mary Westmacott. Later, already being a world-known writer, she tried to avoid publicity and stayed out of public eye.