(826) Murder She Wrote by Maida & Spornick

This is a study of Agatha Christie's detective fiction by Patricia D. Maida and Nicholas B. Spornick.

I find it gratifying that two authors who obviously knew everything about Christie took the time to write the book. It was published by Bowling Green State University Popular Press, Ohio in 1982. In this book, the authors recorded what they could find out about Christie, which is not a lot of information. Christie was a mystery writer who was mysterious herself.

Chapters 4 Hercule Poirot: Dandy Detective and Chapter 5 Miss Jane Marple: Little Old Lady Sleuth are particularly interesting. The authors placed each book in its year of being written. Each character was being worked at, fleshed out through years of development. The authors thought that Christie based the personality of Marple at her grand aunt.

Somewhere in the early chapters, a mention was made of her disappearing act right before she divorced her first husband. Here I first read that she wrote three letters before she left. Only the content of one letter was revealed to the authorities. She was found in a resort, hale and healthy, registered under the name of the woman who was made correspondent in her divorce case. Later her publisher came to her rescue with a noted mental specialist who claimed that she suffered from amnesia. Her first husband was a poor man, at least when she condescended to marry him. It is rather unbelievable that he decided to abandon her for a newer model just as she was becoming rich and famous. Should we choose to think that she was becoming too pompous and self important for her first husband, another man(Max Mallowan) who was sixteen years younger than Christie had had forty five years of wedded bliss with her.

Next to the bible, Christie is still one of the most published and translated authors.