The mystery within the enigma

Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman

Lucy Worsley

(Hodder & Stoughton, £25)

FOR those of us who know Agatha Christie’s most famous creations, Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple, through the prism of film and television, Lucy Worsley’s latest venture into the world of ‘crime’—albeit centred on the most famous exponent of the ‘cosy’, fictional variety, unlike her BBC series Lady Killers —will present some challenges.

Published by Hodder & Stoughton, surely lamenting still its rejection of Christie’s first Poirot book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, it is worth stressing (as does the author) that this book confronts what are now unpalatable attitudes—racism, antisemitism, colonialism, indifference to servants and the labouring class. These, as Dr Worsley observes, were usual for an upper-middle-class Englishwoman born in the late 19th century. It makes for uncomfortable reading in the 21st, but historical biography should not set out to be comforting.