Agatha Christie’s Taste in Crime Fiction

Shedunnit

Caroline Crampton

Books, Arts

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2025

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

She is beloved worldwide for her crime writing. But what did she like to read? Resources and articles mentioned in this episode: — Jamie Bernthal on Arthur Conan Doyle — Moira Redmond on Elizabeth Daly — Martin Edwards on My Brother's Killer — Gray Robert Brown on Muriel Spark Books mentioned in this episode: — Agatha Christie An Autobiography by Agatha Christie — The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle — The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie — The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle — The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie — Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers — Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers — The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L. Sayers — Mr Fortune, Please by H.C. Bailey — Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie — Unexpected Night by Elizabeth Daly — The Missing Moneylender by W. Stanley Sykes — The Clocks by Elizabeth Daly — The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux — My Brother's Killer by D.M. Devine — The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carré — The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie — Endless Night by Agatha Christie — Stamboul Train by Graham Greene — The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark — The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark — A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie — The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie — The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen — Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen — The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen Support the podcast by joining the Shedunnit Book Club and get extra Shedunnit episodes every month plus access to the monthly reading discussions and community: shedunnitbookclub.com/join. NB: Links to Blackwell's are affiliate links, meaning that the podcast receives a small commission when you purchase a book there (the price remains the same for you). Blackwell's is a UK bookselling chain that ships internationally at no extra charge. To be the first to know about future developments with the podcast, sign up for the newsletter at shedunnitshow.com/newsletter. The podcast is on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram as @ShedunnitShow, and you can find it in all major podcast apps. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss the next episode. Click here to do that now in your app of choice. Find a full transcript of this episode at shedunnitshow.com/agathachristiestasteincrimefictiontranscript. Music by Audioblocks and Blue Dot Sessions. See shedunnitshow.com/musiccredits for more details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:32.6	Since you're listening to this podcast, I'm going to take a wild guess and assume that you know
0:38.3	and probably love the work of Agatha Christie. I think there are very few people who don't.
0:44.2	She created beloved detective characters, wove clever surprising plots, and published regularly
0:50.1	and consistently for many decades. I think if I was going to write a recipe for most successful
0:56.0	crime writer of all time, those things would all be on the ingredients list. So far, so obvious,
1:03.2	Christy's writing is largely well-trodden territory today. But what is less well-explored is her
1:08.7	reading. She devoted a lot of time to reading crime fiction.
1:12.6	But what did she like to read?
1:14.7	Did she stay within her own genre or range beyond it?
1:18.2	And what might we learn about her from looking at the books she held in high esteem?
1:23.4	Join me, won't you?
1:24.9	As I explore Agatha Christie's taste in crime fiction.
1:37.3	Welcome to She Done It. I'm Caroline Crampton. As is so often the case, with any consideration of 20th century crime fiction, Sherlock Holmes is where we must begin.
1:56.3	And I think there's a fair case to be made that that is where Agatha Christie began too, in her
2:01.2	reading of crime fiction. In her autobiography, she explains that it was her sister Madge, who was 11
2:07.4	years older, who introduced her to the sleuth of 221B Baker Street, via the 1892 story The Adventure
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