Good evening and welcome to another edition of Inside the Cover.

It is said that Agatha Christie is the best selling author after Shakespeare and the Bible.

In her 80 books, 66 detective stories and 14 short story collections, she introduced us to such characters as Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple and Tommy and Tuppence.

Agatha Christie, an Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley, was published in 2022.

I enjoyed this book and thought it would be a good one for discussion on our show.

Therefore, please, won't you join me as we go inside the cover?

Lucy Worsley is a British historian, author, curator and television presenter.

She graduated from Oxford in 1995 with a B.A.

1st Class Honors Degree.

And in 2001, she was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Sussex.

She has written a number of books, including a biography of Jane Austen.

Worsley writes in a conversational style and is clearly quite knowledgeable about and fond of her subject.

I would consider her to be a Christie fan, but I never got the sense that she ever attempted to sugarcoat the facts or be less than candid about Christie's foibles.

And there were some.

In an introductory piece, Worsley writes that in this book, “I'd like to explore why Agatha Christie spent her life pretending to be ordinary when, in fact, she was breaking boundaries.

” This is a biography with an historical bent the life of a woman whose story intertwines with that of the 20th century.

Worsleys biography is divided into ten parts, covering Christie's life from her birth on September 15, 1890, until her death on January 12, 1976.

In between was certainly an interesting, productive, in many ways, an extraordinary life.

I truly learned a lot, and as a result, I feel much more knowledgeable about this iconic mistress of the mystery.

Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie Mallowan-- She was twice married and once divorced-- was born into a wealthy upper middle class family in Torquay, Devon, and was largely homeschooled.

She was initially an unsuccessful writer with six consecutive rejections, but this changed in 1920, when The Mysterious Affair at Styles featuring Hercule Poirot was published.

And because of Worsley's book, I am now reading Christie, starting with this first book.

Following the breakdown of her marriage and the death of her mother in 1926, Christie made international headlines by going missing for 11 days.

In this book, Worsley writes that it's time to reveal what really happened that night on the grassy slope of the hill rolling down from Newlands Corner.

Whatever happened, it was certainly not Christie's best moment, and it lurked in her background for the remainder of her life.

I was interested to learn that during both world wars, Christie served in hospital dispensaries, acquiring a thorough knowledge of the poisons that are featured in many of her novels, short stories and plays.

Following her marriage to Max Mallowan in 1930, Christie spent several months each year on digs in the Middle East and used her first hand knowledge of this profession in her fiction.

Christie's life was, generally speaking, well lived.

She went surfing in Hawaii.

She loved fast cars, and she was intrigued by the new science of psychology, which helped her through a devastating mental illness.

Worsley describes her as thrillingly, scintillatingly, modern.

She was thoroughly British, but I don't find that she ever took herself too seriously.

Tonight's book has been Agatha Christie, An Elusive Woman, by Lucy Worsley.

I happily recommend it to you.

It is well-written.

It appears to be extensively researched and is entertaining.

And the pictures included with the book certainly keenly illustrate the arc of Christie's life.

Shouldn't we all know a little bit more about one of literature's most imposing writers?

Goodnight and see you next time.

And watch for poison in your tea and crumpets.