Down an Agatha Christie Rabbit Hole

And I can't find a way out (but, do I need to?)

When I changed the name of this newsletter to Brave Words, I decided I was going to write the occasional more challenging piece, inspired by authors and books, that would involve research and a slight shift from writing about my own creative experiences.

My first essay is going to be about Agatha Christie, influenced by my chronological reading project of all of her novels. I’d read The Mystery of the Blue Train and, by chance, I discovered she hated that book. This was interesting to me and I wanted to find out more.

Last Friday I spent a rather beautiful afternoon researching Agatha Christie. Research is something I rarely allow myself as a) I don’t have the energy post burnout and b) I worry about procrastinating. But, now I’m writing these meatier essays I have to do research and wow, did I go down a deep rabbit hole on Friday or what.

So, whilst I’m still busy collecting information, processing it and turning it into words and paragraphs for my essay, I thought I’d share some of the nuggets I discovered on Friday from my Agatha Christie rabbit hole.

It all started with this book: Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World by Mark Aldridge. I was reading the section about The Mystery of the Blue Train and saw he’d cited an interview with a journalist called Francis Wyndham in a 1966 copy of The Times. I tried to find this article - but I probably have to go to a library to get a copy (and I will at some point) but in the process of Googling I discovered that when Agatha Christie went missing in December 1926 she had two books she was contracted to write for her publishers. One was The Big Four. And the second was The Mystery of the Blue Train.

I already knew that The Mystery of the Blue Train was based on a short story called The Plymouth Express. You can find it in Hercule Poirot: the Complete Short Stories. But what I didn’t know is that The Big Four was based on twelve (I believe) short stories. What were these short stories? I had to know. They had previously been published in The Sketch but weren’t in the complete short stories book mentioned above. Was it possible to find all the short stories together? I spent some happy and frustrating minutes trying to find that out. And yes, you can. There is a Collins Crime Club edition published in 2017 that has all the serialised short stories in…but can I find the book anywhere? It was so difficult to track down but eventually I found a copy on eBay in America. I can’t even find a page of it to link to but the synopsis is: “This Detective Story Club classic is introduced by Agatha Christie historian Karl Pike, who has unearthed the 12 magazine stories from the British Library archives and presents here the original version of The Big Four, an adventurous serial novel full of incident and cliffhangers, unseen since 1924.”

From there my research took a turn and I discovered

Lucy Worsley

, who wrote Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman (and which I’m currently reading) is on Substack. I really enjoyed the article below where she describes what happened to Agatha and why she disappeared.

The non-mysterious disappearance of Agatha Christie

Then I needed to know what the name of the hotel was where she stayed in Harrogate during her disappearance ninety-nine years ago. It was The Old Swan Hotel, and yes it’s still there and yes, you can get lovely looking afternoon teas. A place to visit in the future. (I’ve already stayed at The Imperial Hotel in Torquay - a hotel Agatha went to many times and used in novels such as The Body in the Library and Peril at End House.)

It was on The Old Swan’s website that I discovered there is a 1979 film based on Agatha Christie’s disappearance, simply called Agatha. It stars Vanessa Redgrave, Dustin Hoffman, Timothy Dalton and Timothy West (plus a brief appearance by the wonderful Liz Smith). It’s a lovely Sunday afternoon film.

There are also novels that have been written based on Agatha Christie and her disappearance. For example The Mystery of Mrs Christie by Marie Benedict and The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont (I’ve purchased, read and enjoyed both of these). Additionally there is On the Blue Train by Kristel Thornell.

Non-fiction books I’ve now got copies of are: Agatha Christie: An Autobiography, The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie by Charles Osborne, Agatha Christie: An English Mystery by Laura Thompson and Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks and Murder in the Making by John Curran.

And finally. You can get some rather wonderful Agatha Christie inspired art on Etsy which I discovered whilst trying (and failing) to find The Big Four anniversary book. I now have a copy of this vintage-inspired travel poster of St Mary Mead on its way to me.

Actually, that’s not it. A number of people have recommended the All About Agatha Christie podcast by Kemper Donovan and the late Catherine Brobeck. I’m working my way through the episodes as I read each mystery.

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I have linked to Amazon with my affiliate link for each book. I did this so that you could see what each book looks like - but obviously if you do purchase from Amazon they I do receive a few pennies from them in return.