Agatha Christie: The Queen of Crime Annotated

[no_toc]She looks like she could be your grandmother. Sweet. Pleasant company. Perhaps a bit dim but a good heart. Certainly no one who could see into your innermost heart, where your secret desires live. Or serve you a cup of tea laced with something unpleasant.

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Don’t let that face fool you, unless you’re one of the hundreds of millions of readers who have been enthralled by her mystery novels and short stories. This woman has killed hundreds of men, women, even children, and all for your pleasure.

I admit that I was a Sayers fan for a long time. I still am. But while researching Christie’s life and times to annotate her first two books, I discovered that there was a lot more going on in them than the complex enjoyment of what her alter ego Ariadne Oliver called “very plain murders. Just about people who want other people out of the way and try to be clever about it.”

The result can be seen in “The Complete, Annotated Mysterious Affair at Styles” and “The Complete Annotated Secret Adversary,” available in ebook and trade paperback (and in the case of “Adversary,” a deluxe edition)!

Each book contains hundreds of footnotes that define unusual and little-known words, locate places her characters visit, link plot details to her life, describe historical figures and help you understand the times she lived in.

Here’s what you get with each edition. Click on the cover or title to learn more:

The Complete Annotated Mysterious Affair at Styles book cover

The Complete, Annotated
Mysterious Affair at Styles


Trade paperback and ebook

The Complete, Annotated
Secret Adversary


Trade paperback and ebook

The Complete,
Annotated Murder on the Links


Trade paperback and ebook

The Complete, Annotated
Secret of Chimneys


Trade paperback and ebook

The Complete, Annotated
Man in the Brown Suit


Trade paperback and ebook

Christie’s alter ego, Ariadne Oliver, had plenty to say about writing and the writing life, so I gathered them in one convenient place.