Agatha Christie Paperback – 31 August 2023

Readers might have visualized Agatha Christie as a wealthy Englishwoman dressed in tweeds, who had inherited a country estate full of gardeners and gamekeepers, along with a manor staffed by several maids and a butler. Perhaps they also imagined that she had a team of assistants lurking in a cottage, who helped her in churning out her bestsellers – even as she spent her weekends riding with her husband and handing out buttered scones to her numerous grandchildren.Lucy Worsley’s new book ‘Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman’ shows that such notions are quite wrong. While Agatha appears quintessentially English, her father Frederick Miller was an American who chose to settle at the small seaside resort of Torquay in England. Agatha’s mother Clara Boehmer had been born in Dublin to an English mother and a German father. To add to the complexity, the family tree given in the beginning of this book reveals that Clara’s mother was the younger sister of Frederick’s stepmother. “The complicated families often found in Agatha’s fiction,” remarks Worsley, “began life close to home.”Dame Agatha Christie (1890-1976) might have been born with the proverbial silver spoon in her mouth. In the author’s words, “Little Agatha seems to have wanted for nothing that an overstuffed, over-furnished, overconfident high-Victorian household could offer.” Sadly, her idyllic childhood ended at the tender age of eleven, when her indulgent father died and her family’s income declined. Rather than give her a formal schooling, Agatha’s mother preferred that she should learn “music, French, conversation and ‘character.’”As the First World War broke out in 1914, Agatha volunteered to work as a nurse (and she famously picked up a detailed knowledge of various types of poisons). The same year she got married to army officer Archibald Christie, whose name she bore throughout her life. In 1919, Agatha gave birth to Rosalind, her only child. A few years later, Agatha’s first marriage ended in a divorce and she went on to marry archaeologist Max Mallowan, who was fourteen years younger than her. She frequently travelled with Max and his team to excavation sites in Iraq and Syria – and many of her stories were inspired by her journeys and experiences during such expeditions…This book consists of 41 chapters divided into ten sections, roughly corresponding to the decades and important events in Agatha’s long life. There is an evocative black and white photograph of Agatha at the start of each section, besides two sets of colour plates containing more photos of Agatha along with her family and friends. Some of the sections and chapters are named after Christie’s works, e.g. the chapter which talks about her relationship with her daughter Rosalind is titled “A Daughter’s A Daughter.” The very last chapter is poignantly titled “After the Funeral.”Author Lucy Worsley – who is a historian by profession – has made extraordinary efforts to gather information from a variety of sources, ranging from books and newspapers to church registers and asylum records. She has also accessed archival material and private correspondence, apart from holding personal conversations with a handful of individuals who can recall interacting with Christie prior to her death in 1976. The author has taken pains to organize and present the fruits of her research in a highly readable manner. Lady Antonia Fraser (undoubtedly a brilliant woman herself), rightly describes this book as “one brilliant woman writing about another…”“Max once described his wife as combining ‘outer diffidence with a massive inner confidence’, and there are sometimes hints that her public ‘shyness’ was less a genuine character trait than a weapon.” Worsley shares many insights into Agatha’s personal life, which impacted her work. “Despite the fact that she’s had just the one child…she still managed to create a large, complicated family of which she was the centre.”The author has covered not just Christie’s life, but also her works, in her magnificent sweep – for instance, she describes ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’ as “one of the greatest detective novels of all time” and quotes copiously from several Christie books. She probes into minute details of celebrated detectives like Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple as well as a host of minor characters, to build up her story (though she does let out a spoiler or two). She also identifies numerous “tricks” employed by Christie in her books, including what she calls recycling of a good plot; “the reader simply can’t believe that she might be playing the same game twice.”The only flaw I have found in this book is on page 44, where the author says that Archibald Christie was “born on 30 September 1889 in Peshawar, then in Bengal, India, now in Pakistan.” I am sure that neither Poirot nor Marple, much less Christie herself, could have found Peshawar in Bengal, since it lies in north-west Pakistan east of the Khyber Pass!In conclusion, let me say that the Eloquent Lucy turns out to be a perfect match for the Elusive Agatha. By the time you finish reading this book, your wish list will be swelling as you will have a strong urge to read or re-read most, if not all, of Agatha Christie’s books.

Written half heartedly. Difficult to comprehend for people who haven’t read much of Agatha’s work. Author could have chosen a more engaging way of writing about Agatha’s work.