We spend a lot of time alone with our favourite writers, just them and us.

With nothing but the page separating us, a close connection develops.

Even though we only actually know what they've chosen to put in their work,

a sense of familiarity and camaraderie often develops. We feel we know this author,

even though they have no idea who we are in return. How can an author reckon with this

lopsided relationship? One way is to have fun with the persona that has grown up around them,

making readers' assumptions part of the work.

And this is what Agatha Christie did with her character Ariadne Oliver.

Join me, won't you, for an exploration of all of the ways in which Agatha both is and isn't Ariadne.

Music Welcome to She Done It. I'm Caroline Crampton.

The character of Ariadne Oliver first appears in a short story titled The Case of the Discontented Soldier.

It's a low-key beginning.

Ariadne isn't really a detective in it, and she's certainly not the protagonist.

She isn't even given a first name being referred to just as Mrs. Oliver.

This is really a Parker Pine story, another of Christie's lesser-known sleuths.

He's a former government statistician who now in retirement describes himself as a detective of the heart and attempts to use his skills to help unhappy people improve their lives.

Potential clients answer his enigmatic newspaper advertisement, and he attempts to make them happy.

In this story, Mrs. Oliver is a specialist that he has called on to devise an exciting life

event for a jaded ex-colonial major. Although she only has a few lines of dialogue in the story, we do get a relatively strong

first impression of her.

We learn, for instance, that Parker Pine defers to Mrs. Oliver's skill in constructing

a mystery plot because of her literary success.

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