Agatha Mary Clarissa Mallowan, Lady Mallowan (born Miller, September 15, 1890 – January 12, 1976), was an English writer best known by her married name, Agatha Christie. She wrote 66 detective novels and 14 short-story collections. Her most famous fictional detectives include Hercule Poirot (first introduced in The Mysterious Affair at Styles in 1920), Tommy and Tuppence (first in The Secret Adversary in 1922), and Miss Marple (first in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930). She is widely considered one of the greatest writers, especially in the mystery genre.
Christie lived during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction" and was called the "Queen of Crime" or the "Queen of Mystery." She wrote The Mousetrap, the world's longest-running play, which has been performed in London since 1952. She also wrote six novels under the name Mary Westmacott. In 1971, Queen Elizabeth II honored her with the title of Dame (DBE) for her contributions to literature. Her books have sold over two billion copies, making her the best-selling novelist of all time.
Christie was born into a wealthy family in Torquay, Devon, and was mostly homeschooled. She faced six rejections before publishing The Mysterious Affair at Styles in 1920. Her first husband, Archibald Christie, married her in 1914, and they had one child before divorcing in 1928. After her mother’s death in 1926 and her divorce, she disappeared for 11 days, making headlines. During both world wars, she worked in hospital dispensaries, gaining knowledge about poisons used in her stories. She later married archaeologist Max Mallowan in 1930 and spent time each year on archaeological digs in the Middle East, using this experience in her writing.
According to UNESCO’s Index Translationum, Christie is the most-translated individual author. Her novel And Then There Were None is one of the best-selling books, with about 100 million copies sold. The Mousetrap has been performed over 27,500 times since opening in 1952. It was temporarily closed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and reopened in 2021. In 1955, Christie became the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award. That same year, her play Witness for the Prosecution won an Edgar Award for best play. In 2013, professional novelists voted her the best crime writer and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd the best crime novel. In 2015, And Then There Were None was named the "World's Favourite Christie" in a vote by her estate. Many of her books and stories have been adapted for television, radio, video games, and graphic novels. Over 30 movies are based on her work.
Life and career
Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on September 15, 1890, in Torquay, Devon, to a rich family from the middle class. She was the youngest of three children born to Frederick Alvah Miller, a man with a lot of money, and his wife, Clarissa "Clara" Margaret (born Boehmer).
Clara was born in Dublin in 1854 to Frederick Boehmer, a British Army officer, and his wife, Mary Ann (born West). Boehmer died in Jersey in 1863, leaving Clara and her brothers to be raised by their mother with very little money. Two weeks after Boehmer’s death, Clara’s aunt, Margaret West, married Nathaniel Frary Miller, an American businessman who had already been married before. To help Clara financially, Margaret and Nathaniel agreed to take care of Clara. The family moved to Timperley, Cheshire. Nathaniel and Margaret had no children together, but Nathaniel had a son, Frederick "Fred," from his previous marriage. Fred was born in New York City and traveled a lot after leaving school in Switzerland. Clara and Fred married in London in 1878. Their first child, Margaret "Madge" Frary, was born in Torquay in 1879. Their second child, Louis Montant "Monty," was born in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1880 during a visit to the United States.
In 1869, Fred’s father left Clara £2,000 (about £210,000 in 2025). In 1881, Clara and Fred used this money to rent a villa in Torquay called Ashfield. Their third and final child, Agatha, was born there in 1890. Agatha described her childhood as "very happy." The Millers mostly lived in Devon but often visited Clara’s step-grandmother, Margaret Miller, in Ealing and Clara’s mother, Mary Boehmer, in Bayswater. The family spent a year abroad in the French Pyrenees, Paris, Dinard, and Guernsey. Because her siblings were older and there were few children nearby, Agatha often played alone with her pets and imaginary friends. Later, she made friends with other girls in Torquay, and one of her favorite memories was performing in a youth play of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Yeomen of the Guard, where she played the hero, Colonel Fairfax.
Clara believed Agatha should not learn to read until she was eight. However, Agatha learned to read by age four because of her curiosity. Her sister went to a boarding school, but Clara insisted Agatha be educated at home. Agatha’s parents and sister taught her reading, writing, and basic math, which she enjoyed. They also taught her music, and she learned to play the piano and the mandolin.
Agatha loved reading from an early age. She remembered reading children’s books by Mary Louisa Molesworth and Edith Nesbit. Later, she read the strange poems of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll. As a teenager, she enjoyed books by Anthony Hope, Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, and Alexandre Dumas. In April 1901, when she was 10, she wrote her first poem, "The Cow Slip."
By 1901, Agatha’s father, Fred, had grown very sick because he believed he had heart problems. He died in November 1901 from pneumonia and kidney disease. Agatha later said her father’s death when she was 11 marked the end of her childhood.
At this time, the family’s money had decreased. Madge married the year after Fred’s death and moved to Cheadle, Cheshire. Monty was overseas, serving in a British army unit. Agatha now lived alone at Ashfield with her mother. In 1902, she began attending Miss Guyer’s Girls’ School in Torquay but found it hard to adjust to the strict rules. In 1905, her mother sent her to Paris, where she studied in a series of boarding schools, focusing on singing and piano. She decided she did not have the talent or personality to become a professional pianist or opera singer.
After finishing school, Agatha returned to England to find her mother was very ill. They decided to spend the winter of 1907–1908 in Egypt, a place where wealthy British people often traveled. They stayed for three months at the Gezirah Palace Hotel in Cairo. Agatha attended many dances and social events, especially enjoying watching amateur polo matches. While visiting ancient Egyptian monuments like the Great Pyramid of Giza, she did not show much interest in archaeology or Egyptology, which she later developed. Returning to Britain, she continued social activities and performed in amateur plays. She also helped stage a play called The Blue Beard of Unhappiness with her friends.
At 18, Agatha wrote her first short story, "The House of Beauty," while recovering from an illness. The story was about 6,000 words and focused on "madness and dreams," topics she found fascinating. Her biographer, Janet Morgan, said the story was "compelling" even though it had some writing problems. (The story later became an early version of her story The House of Dreams.) Other stories followed, many of which explored spiritualism and the paranormal, such as "The Call of Wings" and "The Little Lonely God." Magazines rejected her early submissions, which she sent under fake names (including Mac Miller, Nathaniel Miller, and Sydney West). Some of these stories were later revised and published under her real name with new titles.
Around the same time, Agatha began writing her first novel, Snow Upon the Desert. She used the pen name Monosyllaba and set the book in Cairo, drawing on her recent experiences there. She was disappointed when six publishers refused to publish the work. Her mother, Clara, suggested Agatha ask for advice from Eden Phillpotts, a successful novelist and family friend. Phillpotts encouraged her writing and introduced her to his literary agent, Hughes Massie, who also rejected Snow Upon the Desert but suggested she try writing a second novel.
Meanwhile, Agatha’s social life grew, including country house parties, riding, hunting, dances, and roller skating. She had short relationships with four men and became engaged to another. In October 1912, she met Archibald "Archie" Christie at a dance hosted by Lord and Lady Clifford at Ugbrooke, about 12 miles from Torquay. Archie was the son of a barrister in the Indian Civil Service and a Royal Artillery officer who later joined the Royal Flying Corps. The couple fell in love quickly, and Archie proposed marriage three months after they
Death and estate
Agatha Christie died on January 12, 1976, at the age of 85 from natural causes at her home in Winterbrook House. After her death, two theaters in London—the St. Martin's, where The Mousetrap was playing, and the Savoy, where a revival of Murder at the Vicarage was being performed—turned off their outside lights to honor her. She was buried in the nearby churchyard of St. Mary's, Cholsey, in a plot she had chosen with her husband 10 years earlier. A simple funeral service was attended by about 20 reporters from newspapers and television, some of whom traveled from as far away as South America. Thirty wreaths were placed on her grave, including one from the cast of The Mousetrap and another sent by Ulverscroft Large Print Book Publishers on behalf of readers who appreciated her work.
Her husband, Mallowan, remarried in 1977 and died in 1978. He was buried next to Christie.
Christie did not want to be seen as an employee, so for tax reasons, she created a private company in 1955 called Agatha Christie Limited to manage the rights to her books and plays. In 1959, she gave her 278-acre home, Greenway Estate, to her daughter, Rosalind Hicks. In 1968, when Christie was nearly 80 years old, she sold 51% of Agatha Christie Limited to Booker Books. By 1977, Booker Books increased its ownership to 64%. Today, Agatha Christie Limited still holds the worldwide rights to more than 80 of Christie's novels, 19 plays, and nearly 40 TV films.
In the late 1950s, it was said that Christie earned about £100,000 per year (equivalent to about £2,000,000 in 2025). She sold an estimated 300 million books during her lifetime. At the time of her death in 1976, she was the best-selling novelist in history. One estimate of her total earnings from over 50 years of writing is $20 million (about $113.2 million in 2025). Because of her tax planning, her will left only £106,683 (about £719,000 in 2025) to her family. Her daughter, Rosalind Hicks, inherited the remaining 36% of Agatha Christie Limited. Hicks protected her mother's works, image, and legacy until her own death in 2004. The family's ownership allowed them to appoint 50% of the company's board and the chairman, and to have a say over new versions of Christie's works.
In 2004, a newspaper article described Hicks as someone who wanted to protect her mother's vision and avoid activities that might harm her mother's legacy. After Hicks died in 2004, Greenway Estate passed to her son, Mathew Prichard. After his stepfather died in 2005, Prichard donated Greenway and its contents to the National Trust.
Christie's family and trusts, including her great-grandson James Prichard, still own the 36% share of Agatha Christie Limited. In 2020, James Prichard was the company's chairman. Mathew Prichard also holds the copyright to some of Christie's later works, including The Mousetrap. Christie's work continues to be adapted for new audiences.
In 1998, Booker Books sold its shares in Agatha Christie Limited (which earned about £2,100,000 per year, or about £4,100,000 in 2025) for £10,000,000 (about £19,400,000 in 2025) to a company called Chorion. Chorion owned the rights to other famous authors, such as Enid Blyton and Dennis Wheatley. In 2012, Chorion sold its 64% share in Agatha Christie Limited to Acorn Media UK. In 2014, a company called RLJ Entertainment Inc. (RLJE) bought Acorn Media UK and renamed it Acorn Media Enterprises.
In 2014, the BBC acquired the exclusive rights to broadcast Christie's works in the United Kingdom. The BBC planned new productions for the 125th anniversary of Christie's birth in 2015. Since then, the BBC has aired adaptations of Partners in Crime, And Then There Were None, The Witness for the Prosecution, Ordeal by Innocence, The A.B.C. Murders, The Pale Horse, Murder Is Easy, and Towards Zero. A version of Endless Night has also been announced.
Since 2020, reprints of Christie's Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot novels by HarperCollins have removed parts that include descriptions, insults, or references to ethnicity.
On January 1, 2026, several of Christie's important books from 1930, including The Murder at the Vicarage and her first play Black Coffee, entered the public domain in the United States. This means these works can now be freely published or adapted. Under the U.S. Copyright Term Extension Act, these works became available 95 years after their initial release, following the earlier end of copyrights for The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
In places where copyright lasts for 50 years after the author's death, all of Christie's published works will no longer be protected by copyright at the start of 2027. In areas where copyright lasts for 70 years after the author's death, Christie's works will remain protected until the start of 2047.
Works
Agatha Christie's first published book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was released in 1920. It introduced the detective Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 33 of her novels and more than 50 short stories.
Over time, Christie became less interested in writing about Poirot, similar to how Arthur Conan Doyle grew tired of Sherlock Holmes. By the end of the 1930s, Christie wrote in her diary that she found Poirot "annoying." By the 1960s, she described him as "self-centered." However, some believe her dislike of the character was exaggerated. Christie later worked to protect Poirot's image, treating him as if he were her own family. Unlike Doyle, she did not kill off Poirot while he was still popular. She also married off Poirot's sidekick, Captain Arthur Hastings, to reduce the number of characters in her stories.
Miss Jane Marple was introduced in a series of short stories that began in December 1927. These stories were later collected in a book titled The Thirteen Problems. Marple was a polite, elderly woman who solved crimes by comparing them to events in small English villages. Christie said Marple was not based on her grandmother, but she did draw inspiration from her step-grandmother, Margaret Miller, and her friends. Both Marple and Miller were known for expecting the worst and often being correct. Marple appeared in 12 novels and 20 stories.
During World War II, Christie wrote two novels: Curtain, featuring Poirot, and Sleeping Murder, featuring Marple. Both books were stored in a bank vault, and Christie gifted the copyright rights to her daughter and husband as a form of insurance. After Christie had a heart attack and a serious fall in 1974, she could no longer write. Her daughter published Curtain in 1975, and Sleeping Murder was published after Christie's death in 1976. These books followed the success of the 1974 film Murder on the Orient Express.
Before Curtain was published, Poirot became the first fictional character to have an obituary in The New York Times. The obituary appeared on page one on August 6, 1975.
Christie never wrote a story that included both Poirot and Marple. In a recording from 2008, she explained that Poirot, being very confident, would not like working with an older woman who gave him advice.
In 2013, the Christie family supported the release of a new Poirot story, The Monogram Murders, written by Sophie Hannah. Hannah later wrote more Poirot mysteries, including Closed Casket (2016), The Mystery of Three Quarters (2018), The Killings at Kingfisher Hill (2020), and Hercule Poirot's Silent Night (2023). A sixth book was planned for 2024.
In 2021, the Christie family supported the release of a collection of Miss Marple short stories titled Marple. The book, published in 2022, included stories written by different authors, such as Naomi Alderman, Leigh Bardugo, and Ruth Ware.
Early in her career, a reporter noted that Christie's stories were "logical and always new." Sophie Hannah said Christie often started her books with impossible situations, then showed how they were actually possible.
Christie developed her writing skills during the "Golden Age" of detective fiction. She was called "the doyenne of Coziness," a style of mystery that often took place in small villages with characters like aristocrats, servants, and suspicious neighbors. At the end of her stories, the detective usually explained how the crime happened, though sometimes the guilty person revealed the truth themselves.
Christie's stories were not limited to English villages. Her plots took place on islands, airplanes, trains, ships, and archaeological sites. The suspects were often close to the victim, like family members or friends. Christie used simple clues, such as calendars or coffee cups, to solve crimes. Poison was a common method of killing, but she avoided complex scientific explanations.
Crime writer P. D. James said Christie often made the least likely character the criminal. In her book Cards on the Table, Christie warned readers that her stories were not about finding the most obvious suspect.
In 2007, Brian Aldiss said Christie planned her stories by first writing the ending, then adjusting the plot to make the least likely suspect the criminal. John Curran, a literary adviser, explained that Christie created characters, settings, and scenes in notebooks before writing the final story. The murderer had to be known to her before she began writing the first draft.
In 2013, 600 members of the Crime Writers' Association voted The Murder of Roger Ackroyd as the best mystery story ever written. The book followed typical detective story conventions, including a village setting, a suspicious butler, and a murder in a study.
Critical reception
Agatha Christie is often called the "Queen of Crime" or "Queen of Mystery." She is known for being very skilled at creating suspense, planning stories, and developing characters. In 1955, she was the first person to receive the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award. In 2000, she was named "Best Writer of the Century," and her Hercule Poirot series was called "Best Series of the Century" at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention. In 2008, The Times listed her as the third greatest crime writer of all time, after Patricia Highsmith and Georges Simenon. In 2013, she was voted "best crime writer" by 600 members of the Crime Writers' Association. However, some writers, like Raymond Chandler and Julian Symons, criticized her books for feeling too artificial. A literary critic named Edmund Wilson said her writing was boring and her characters were not deep.
A writer named Stephen Moss once said, "With Christie, we are dealing not so much with a literary figure as with a broad cultural phenomenon, like Barbie or the Beatles."
In 2011, a TV channel called Alibi named Christie the second most financially successful crime writer in the United Kingdom, after Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond series. She earned about £100 million in total. In 2012, she was included in a new version of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover, created by artist Peter Blake, to honor British cultural figures he admired.
In 2012, the play The Mousetrap, which Christie wrote, celebrated its 60th anniversary. Stephen Moss of The Guardian said the play and its author were the stars of the event.
In 2015, to mark the 125th anniversary of Christie's birth, 25 mystery writers and one publisher shared their thoughts about her work. Many of the writers said they first read Christie's books before others in the mystery genre, and her stories influenced their own writing. Most still consider her the leading crime novelist and the creator of plot twists used by other mystery writers. Nearly all of them had favorite mysteries among Christie's books and said her stories were still enjoyable even 100 years after her first novel was published. Only one of the 25 writers agreed with Edmund Wilson's opinions.
During her most successful years, Christie's books were often on the bestseller list. She was the first crime writer to have 100,000 copies of 10 of her books published at the same time in 1948 by Penguin. As of 2018, Guinness World Records listed Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time. By 2020, her books had sold more than two billion copies in 44 languages. Half of these sales were English-language editions, and the other half were translations. According to Index Translationum, as of 2020, she was the most-translated individual author.
Christie is one of the most borrowed authors in UK libraries. She is also the UK's best-selling spoken-book author. In 2002, 117,696 audiobooks by Christie were sold, compared to 97,755 for J. K. Rowling, 78,770 for Roald Dahl, and 75,841 for J. R. R. Tolkien. In 2015, the Christie estate said And Then There Were None was the best-selling crime novel of all time, with about 100 million copies sold. It is also one of the highest-selling books ever. In 2020, more than two million copies of her books were sold in English.
Legacy
In 2016, the Royal Mail celebrated the 100th anniversary of Christie's first detective story by releasing six first-class postage stamps featuring her works: The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Murder on the Orient Express, And Then There Were None, The Body in the Library, and A Murder is Announced. The Guardian reported that each stamp design included hidden clues using microtext, UV ink, and thermochromic ink. These clues can be seen with a magnifying glass, UV light, or body heat and help solve the mysteries in the stories.
Her characters and her image appeared on stamps from many countries, including Dominica and the Somali Republic. In 2020, the Royal Mint released a £2 coin for the first time to mark the 100th anniversary of her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles.
In 2023, a life-sized bronze statue of Christie sitting on a park bench with a book was unveiled in Wallingford, Oxfordshire.
Christie's works have been adapted for films and television. The first film was The Passing of Mr. Quin in 1928. Poirot first appeared in a film in 1931, in the movie Alibi, which starred Austin Trevor as the detective. Margaret Rutherford played Marple in a series of films released in the 1960s. Christie thought the first film was "pretty poor" and did not think much of the others. She had a different opinion about the 1974 film Murder on the Orient Express, which had major stars and high production quality. She attended the London premiere, one of her last public events. In 2017, a new version of the film was released, directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also starred, wearing "the most extravagant mustache ever seen by moviegoers." Branagh later directed two more adaptations: Death on the Nile (2022) and A Haunting in Venice (2023), the latter based on her 1969 novel Hallowe'en Party.
The television series Agatha Christie's Poirot (1989–2013), with David Suchet in the title role, aired 70 episodes over 13 seasons. It received nine BAFTA award nominations and won four BAFTA awards between 1990 and 1992. The television series Miss Marple (1984–1992), with Joan Hickson as "the BBC's unmatched Miss Marple," adapted all 12 of Christie's Marple novels. The French television series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie (2009–2012, 2013–2020) adapted 36 of Christie's stories.
Christie's books have also been adapted for BBC Radio, a video game series, and graphic novels.
Interests and influences
During the First World War, Christie paused her nursing work to prepare for the Apothecaries Hall Examination. Although she later found working in the hospital pharmacy to be boring compared to nursing, the knowledge she gained helped her understand drugs that could be harmful. Early in the Second World War, she updated her skills at Torquay Hospital.
As Michael C. Gerald explains, her work as a hospital dispenser during both wars helped support the war effort and gave her a better understanding of how drugs can be used to treat illnesses or cause harm. These experiences likely influenced the important roles doctors, nurses, and pharmacists play in her stories. Many of her books include characters who are medical professionals, scientists, or people who are either trusting or doubtful about others. These characters appear in works such as Murder in Mesopotamia, Cards on the Table, The Pale Horse, and Mrs. McGinty's Dead, among others.
Gillian Gill notes that the murder method in Christie’s first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was based on her work in the hospital dispensary. In an interview with journalist Marcelle Bernstein, Christie said, "I don’t like messy deaths… I’m more interested in peaceful people who die in their own beds and no one knows why." Because of her knowledge, she did not need to use poisons that were unknown to science, which were banned by Ronald Knox’s "Ten Rules for Detective Fiction." Poisons such as arsenic, aconite, strychnine, digitalis, nicotine, thallium, and others were used in her stories over the years.
The past had a strong attraction for Christie. She once said that finding a golden dagger slowly emerging from the sand felt romantic. She also felt a deep desire to become an archaeologist after seeing how carefully objects were uncovered from the soil.
As a young woman, Christie was not interested in ancient artifacts. After marrying Mallowan in 1930, she joined him on yearly trips to Syria and Iraq, where they worked at excavation sites such as Ur, Nineveh, Tell Arpachiyah, Chagar Bazar, Tell Brak, and Nimrud. During these trips, the Mallowans also visited places like Italy, Greece, Egypt, Iran, and the Soviet Union. Their travels and time abroad are shown in books like Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, and Appointment with Death.
In 1931, during the digging season at Nineveh, Christie bought a writing table to continue her work. In the early 1950s, she paid to build a small writing room at the team’s house in Nimrud. Each season, she helped by photographing, cleaning, and recording discoveries, and by restoring pottery, which she especially enjoyed. She also gave money to support the expeditions.
Many of the settings in Christie’s books were inspired by her time working on archaeological digs in the Middle East. She described places like the temple of Abu Simbel in Death on the Nile with great detail. The settings in They Came to Baghdad were places she and Mallowan had recently visited. She also used her knowledge of daily life on an archaeological site in Murder in Mesopotamia. Experts in archaeology and Middle Eastern culture, such as Dr. Eric Leidner in Murder in Mesopotamia and Signor Richetti in Death on the Nile, appear in her stories.
After the Second World War, Christie wrote about her time in Syria in a book called Come, Tell Me How You Live, which she called "small beer – a very little book, full of everyday doings and happenings." From November 8, 2001, to March 2002, The British Museum held an exhibition called Agatha Christie and Archaeology: Mystery in Mesopotamia, which showed how her work as a writer and as the wife of an archaeologist connected.
In popular culture
Agatha Christie's disappearance in 1926 has been the subject of many fictional stories. The 1979 film Agatha, starring Vanessa Redgrave, shows Christie secretly planning revenge against her husband. Christie's family tried but failed to stop the film from being shown. In the 2008 Doctor Who episode "The Unicorn and the Wasp," Fenella Woolgar plays Christie, and her disappearance is linked to aliens. The 2018 film Agatha and the Truth of Murder portrays Christie working undercover to solve a murder. A Korean musical titled Agatha also focuses on her disappearance. The 2022 novel The Christie Affair, written by Nina de Gramont, is a fictional mystery inspired by Christie's disappearance.
Other stories imagine different scenarios. The 1980 Hungarian film Kojak Budapesten features Christie using her detective skills in a fictional crime. In the 1986 TV play Murder by the Book, Dame Peggy Ashcroft plays Christie, who kills a character named Poirot. Christie also appears in books like Dorothy and Agatha by Gaylord Larsen and The London Blitz Murders by Max Allan Collins. The TV show Unsolved Mysteries included a segment about her disappearance, with Tessa Pritchard playing Christie. In the Spanish series Gran Hotel (2011), a young Agatha helps detectives and gains inspiration for writing. In Agatha and the Curse of Ishtar (2018), Christie investigates a murder during an archaeological dig in Iraq. In 2019, Honeysuckle Weeks portrayed Christie in an episode of Frankie Drake Mysteries, where she helps solve a mystery.
In 2020, Heather Terrell, writing under the name Marie Benedict, published The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, a fictional account of her disappearance. The book appeared on bestseller lists and was recognized by Library Reads. Andrew Wilson has written four novels featuring Christie as a detective. Starting in 2021, Colleen Gleason, using the pen name "Colleen Cambridge," created a series about a character named Phyllida Bright, who works for Christie. In the 2022 film See How They Run, Shirley Henderson plays Christie. In 2024, Mithu Sanyal published a novel titled Antichristie (in German), which includes a plot about rewriting the Hercule Poirot mysteries.