From Agatha Christie and Patricia Highsmith to Val McDermid and JK Rowling, After Agatha is an indispensable guide to women's crime writing over the last century and an exploration of why women read crime Spanning the 1930s to present day, After Agatha charts the explosion in women's crime writing and examines key developments on both sides of the Atlantic: from the women writers at the helm of the UK Golden Age and their American and Canadian counterparts fighting to be heard, to the 1980s experimental trio, Marcia Muller, Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton, who created the first female PIs, and the more recent emergence of forensic crime writing and domestic noir thrillers such as Gone Girl and Apple Tree Yard. After Agatha examines the diversification of crime writing and highlights landmark women's novels which featured the marginalised in society as centralised characters. Cline also explores why women readers are drawn to the genre and seek out justice in crime fiction, in a world where violent crimes against women rarely have such resolution. The book includes interviews with dozens of contemporary authors such as Ann Cleeves, Sophie Hannah, Tess Gerritsen and Kathy Reichs and features the work of hundreds of women crime and mystery writers. It is an essential read for crime fiction lovers.
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER! "A stunning story... The ending is ingenious, and it's possible that Benedict has brought to life the most plausible explanation for why Christie disappeared for 11 days in 1926."—The Washington Post The New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Only Woman in the Room returns with a thrilling reconstruction of one of the most notorious events in literary history: Agatha Christie's mysterious 11-day disappearance in 1926. In December 1926, Agatha Christie goes missing. Investigators find her empty car on the edge of a deep, gloomy pond, the only clues some tire tracks nearby and a fur coat left in the car—strange for a frigid night. Her World War I veteran husband and her daughter have no knowledge of her whereabouts, and England unleashes an unprecedented manhunt to find the up-and-coming mystery author. Eleven days later, she reappears, just as mysteriously as she disappeared, claiming amnesia and providing no explanations for her time away. The puzzle of those missing eleven days has persisted. With her trademark historical fiction exploration into the shadows of the past, acclaimed author Marie Benedict brings us into the world of Agatha Christie, imagining why such a brilliant woman would find herself at the center of such murky historical mysteries. What is real, and what is mystery? What role did her unfaithful husband play, and what was he not telling investigators? Agatha Christie novels have withstood the test of time, due in no small part to Christie's masterful storytelling and clever mind that may never be matched, but Agatha Christie's untold history offers perhaps her greatest mystery of all. Fans of The Secrets We Kept, The Lions of Fifth Avenue, and The Alice Network will enjoy this riveting saga of literary history, suspense, and love gone wrong. Other Bestselling Historical Fiction from Marie Benedict: Lady Clementine The Only Woman in the Room Carnegie's Maid The Other Einstein
THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL is now a major motion picture from Netflix, starring Academy Award winner Charlize Theron, Kerry Washington, Laurence Fishburne, Michelle Yeoh, Cate Blanchett, and many more! A dark and enchanting fantasy adventure for those who prefer fairytales with a twist. The first in the bestselling series.
On December 3rd 1926 crime writer Agatha Christie, 1890-1976, disappeared from her home in Berkshire, leaving her car abandoned off the road. She turned up 11 days later, claiming to be suffering from amnesia; based on true incident.
It has been one hundred years since Agatha Christie wrote her first novel and created the formidable Hercule Poirot. A brilliant and award winning biographer, Laura Thompson now turns her sharp eye to Agatha Christie. Arguably the greatest crime writer in the world, Christie's books still sell over four million copies each year—more than thirty years after her death—and it shows no signs of slowing.But who was the woman behind these mystifying, yet eternally pleasing, puzzlers? Thompson reveals the Edwardian world in which Christie grew up, explores her relationships, including those with her two husbands and daughter, and investigates the many mysteries still surrounding Christie's life, most notably, her eleven-day disappearance in 1926.Agatha Christie is as mysterious as the stories she penned, and writing about her is a detection job in itself. With unprecedented access to all of Christie's letters, papers, and notebooks, as well as fresh and insightful interviews with her grandson, daughter, son-in-law and their living relations, Thompson is able to unravel not only the detailed workings of Christie's detective fiction, but the truth behind this mysterious woman.
If you like unusual travel books, then you’ll enjoy Susan Snow Lukesh's study of her great aunt Agatha Snow's sketch book developed during her 3-month tour of Europe with three companions in 1912. In Agatha! Agatha Snow Abroad: A Sketch Book from her 1912 EuropeanTour, Lukesh presents and explores the original images and brief comments, pulling threads to explore what the often-cryptic comments mean. Agatha! also explores the people she and her friends met and briefly traveled with, and what happened to the various players in this trip after it ended as the world moved into the first World War and even beyond. Although their steam ship left New York harbor barely two days after the Titanic sank and before the survivors arrived, no recorded comments from the passage to Europe mention the tragedy. Contemporary postcards and one early 19th c print complement Agatha's drawings and show how close her small sketches came to the actual sites she portrayed. The small sketch book, not even four by six inches, presents images—some with incredible detail that is best seen when the original image is enlarged, causing a reader to shake his or her head and wonder how she did it. Her favorite subjects are people and as many folks who travel know part of the fascination and interest in travel is encountering people who are quite different from those we know at home. And certainly, Agatha's images, in fact caricatures, of people capture and convey her clear fascination with the people she encountered. Agatha! supplements Agatha's comments and descriptions with diary entries and letters sent home by other contemporary accounts further enriching what may first appear as a meager offering, if judged only by size. Agatha’s sketch book, and the exploration of it, offer a snapshot of life in the early 1900s during the Edwardian era—where and how folks traveled, what travelers discussed, what they did, and what they ate. Lukesh also traveled on a couple occasions to some of the very places that Agatha and companions visited. On one occasion, she found herself traveling in one of the railway cars and on the very line—both now under restoration—that Agatha and companions traveled in England. Also, in England, she traveled to see Warwick where Agatha had seen and drawn two wonderful sketches of men on the streets of that fine historic town. Agatha! not only presents the original sketches and brief comments from over 100 years ago, but includes solutions to puzzles that Agatha left us, such as what is the story of Mrs. Campbell and the Cockroaches in the Cabin, what is A.B.C., and what are horse-tail guards? Agatha!fulfills a reader's need to know what happened to the folks Agatha met and now the readers meet on the trip—both those on the ship passages to and from Europe and those met along the way in Europe. As much as possible, using public records, the lives of some of them after the trip, through World War 1 and the years after, are traced, as are the fates of the ships that carried the travelers. Not every puzzle has been solved, leaving some for readers, but many are, with great thanks to internet resources these days and Lukesh's ability to use public records for genealogical purposes and answers. A final bonus in Agatha! For decades Lukesh excavated and studied the things left behind by prehistoric folks in Southern Italy and Sicily. Today her attention has turned to things left behind by her ancestors. From a gold bracelet she wears, to an 1860s photo album, and to this sketch book of her great aunt Agatha. This exploration of a tour by four women in their 20s over 100 years ago gives insight on restoring pieces of family history based on things left behind, offering a template for organizing similar genealogy research.
'Laura Thompson's outstanding biography . . . is a pretty much perfect capturing of a life' - Kate Mosse It has been 100 years since Agatha Christie wrote her first novel and created the formidable Hercule Poirot. In this biography, Laura Thompson describes the Edwardian world in which she grew up, explores the relationships she had, including those with her two husbands and daughter, and investigates the mysteries still surrounding Christie's life - including her disappearance in 1926. Agatha Christie is a mystery and writing about her is a detection job in itself. But, with access to all of Christie's letters, papers and writing notebooks, as well as interviews with her grandson, daughter, son-in-law and their living relations, Thompson is able to unravel not only the detailed workings of Christie's detective fiction, but the truth behind her private life as well. First published in 2007 as 'Agatha Christie: An English Mystery', this is a fully updated edition with a new introduction by the author
