She went surfing in Hawaii, she loved fast cars, and she was intrigued by the new science of psychology, which helped her through devastating mental illness. Loved that she presented AC and her times in 3D and did not pussyfoot around possible sensitive subjects (like Christie's appatent antisemitism in her novels even after WWII, her attitude to motherhood, or the weak quality of her later books).

Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was “just” an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn’t? Her characters, especially Miss Marple and Poirot, live alongside iconic detective fiction figures like Poe’s Dupin and ACD’s Sherlock Holmes. It’s more, perhaps, that she brings a clear-eyed empathy that allows her to acknowledge Christie’s limitations and prejudices without consigning her to the silos of mass-market populist and absentee mother. A new, fascinating account of the life of Agatha Christie from celebrated literary and cultural historian Lucy Worsley.

On the third day, she even failed to go to her work at the hospital, ‘because I did not dare leave my book . Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was “just” an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn’t? She proves it once again by capturing the life of the elusive Agatha Christie in a book so full of sensitive interpretations and surprising revelations that you won't want to put it down. She went surfing in Hawaii, she loved fast cars, and she was intrigued by the new science of psychology, which helped her through devastating mental illness.

Perhaps counterintuitively, Worsley’s plummy-chummy tone bolsters rather than detracts from the seriousness with which she has evidently taken her task, as if she’s attempting to translate the sensibilities of a bygone era and mindset to contemporary life. And the notebooks also reveal how work for Agatha was threaded right through life: alongside ideas for characters and plots are a list of furniture; a reminder to make a hair appointment; a note of the train time to Torquay.Her bestselling books include Queen Victoria; Jane Austen at Home; The Art of the English Murder; and If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.