Agatha Christie
Spine number 01
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
A poisoning at Styles Court draws the wounded soldier Hastings into a household full of competing loyalties. His friend Hercule Poirot, a Belgian refugee, brings an exacting eye to the evidence in Christie’s first novel.
1920 · book · Fiction
Spine number 02
The Secret Adversary
Short of money after the First World War, Tommy and Tuppence offer their services as adventurers and become entangled in the search for a missing woman and dangerous documents. Their first appearance combines a conspiracy thriller with the energy of two friends improvising their way through trouble.
1922 · book · Fiction
Spine number 03
Poirot Investigates
Poirot and Hastings tackle stolen jewels, disappearances and suspicious deaths in a series of compact investigations. This entry represents the original eleven-story British collection, bringing together cases previously published in magazines.
1924 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 04
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Poirot’s retirement in King’s Abbot is interrupted when a wealthy neighbour is found murdered in his study. Dr Sheppard records an investigation in which village gossip, blackmail and the handling of information matter as much as physical clues. The novel appeared in book form in 1926 after serialisation as Who Killed Ackroyd? in 1925.
1926 · book · Fiction
Spine number 05
Partners in Crime
Tommy and Tuppence take charge of a detective agency and find that an apparently ordinary business can bring distinctly dangerous clients. These linked stories put their partnership to work on thefts, deceptions and murder, with room for humour alongside the investigations.
1929 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 06
The Mysterious Mr Quin
The observant Mr Satterthwaite encounters Harley Quin, a stranger whose appearances give old events and troubled relationships a different meaning. Twelve stories bring detection close to the supernatural, leaving an air of uncertainty around the man who helps others see.
1930 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 07
Giant’s Bread
Vernon Deyre’s devotion to music places difficult demands on the people who love him and on the life he might otherwise lead. Christie’s first novel as Mary Westmacott explores ambition, emotional dependence and the cost of artistic work.
1930 · book · Fiction
Spine number 08
The Murder at the Vicarage
An unpopular colonel is found shot in the vicar’s study, leaving St Mary Mead with abundant suspects and no shortage of opinions. Miss Marple’s first novel sets her understanding of human behaviour against the village’s tangled accounts of itself.
1930 · book · Fiction
Spine number 09
The Thirteen Problems
Friends take turns recounting puzzling crimes, expecting to test one another’s ingenuity over an evening’s conversation. Miss Marple listens and finds telling parallels in everyday village life. The collection gathers thirteen cases, including her debut story, The Tuesday Night Club, first published in 1927.
1932 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 10
Murder on the Orient Express
A passenger is murdered while a snowbound train is cut off from outside help, and Poirot must question the people sharing the journey. The confined setting turns timetables, small objects and conflicting testimony into the materials of an unusually concentrated investigation.
1934 · book · Fiction
Spine number 11
Unfinished Portrait
A painter meets Celia at a moment of profound despair and listens as she recounts the losses and attachments that have shaped her life. Published as Mary Westmacott, this completed novel draws on autobiographical material while remaining a work of fiction.
1934 · book · Fiction
Spine number 12
The ABC Murders
Letters sent to Poirot announce a succession of murders whose victims and locations follow an alphabetical pattern. The investigation moves beyond a single household into a frightened public world, asking whether the apparent pattern can be trusted.
1936 · book · Fiction
Spine number 13
Death on the Nile
Poirot’s Egyptian holiday brings him into the orbit of a wealthy young woman, her husband and a bitterly unhappy former friend. When murder interrupts a river cruise, private resentments and the passengers’ movements become evidence in a tightly plotted travel mystery.
1937 · book · Fiction
Spine number 14
And Then There Were None
Ten people arrive on an island off the Devon coast and discover that their absent host knows troubling details of their pasts. As deaths begin to echo a nursery rhyme, the guests must reckon with the possibility that the danger is among them. First published in Britain in 1939 under a different title, the novel uses the title of its 1940 American edition here.
1939 · book · Fiction
Spine number 15
Evil Under the Sun
A seaside holiday gives Poirot plenty of opportunity to observe the tensions surrounding Arlena Stuart, an actress whose presence unsettles her fellow guests. Her murder turns the resort’s apparent idleness into a demanding puzzle of opportunity and appearances.
1941 · book · Fiction
Spine number 16
The Body in the Library
The Bantrys wake to discover an unknown young woman’s body in their library, an intrusion that threatens their comfortable reputation. Mrs Bantry calls on Miss Marple to investigate a mystery connecting the country house with a very different social world.
1942 · book · Fiction
Spine number 17
Five Little Pigs
A young woman asks Poirot to reconsider the murder for which her mother was convicted sixteen years earlier. He compares the memories of five witnesses, finding that old feelings can distort a story as effectively as a lie. First published in the United States as Murder in Retrospect in 1942, it appeared under its British title in 1943.
1942 · book · Fiction
Spine number 18
Towards Zero
A gathering at a seaside house brings a tennis player, his present wife and his former wife into uncomfortable proximity. Superintendent Battle’s investigation follows the earlier decisions and encounters that converge on a murder. The book followed a three-part American magazine serial in 1944.
1944 · book · Fiction
Spine number 19
Absent in the Spring
Stranded alone while travelling home from Iraq, Joan Scudamore has little to occupy her except her own memories. This Mary Westmacott novel turns an interruption to a journey into an unsettling examination of the gap between self-image and other people’s experience.
1944 · book · Fiction
Spine number 20
Death Comes as the End
Renisenb returns to her family in ancient Egypt and finds the household disrupted by her father’s new concubine. A death exposes tensions that familiar domestic routines have concealed. Drawing on ancient Egyptian letters, the novel first appeared in the United States in 1944, before its British publication in 1945.
1944 · book · Fiction
Spine number 21
The Hollow
Poirot arrives for lunch at the Angkatells’ country house to find a dying man beside the swimming pool. What first resembles a staged scene opens into an investigation shaped by marriage, desire and the loyalties of the people present.
1946 · book · Fiction
Spine number 22
Come, Tell Me How You Live
Christie recalls travelling and working with her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan in Syria and Iraq. The memoir attends to the practical arrangements, personalities and mishaps of expedition life, offering a view of the daily work behind an excavation.
1946 · book · Non-fiction
Spine number 23
The Labours of Hercules
Before retiring, Poirot resolves to choose twelve cases that echo the labours of his mythological namesake. The resulting stories translate heroic tasks into modern investigations involving animals, reputations, disappearances and deception. Stories first appearing in magazines from 1939 were gathered into this collection in 1947.
1947 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 24
The Rose and the Yew Tree
A socially ambitious man’s relationship with an upper-class woman draws love into the pursuit of status. This Mary Westmacott novel considers the consequences of wanting a different life, with emotional and social ambition taking the place of a detective puzzle.
1948 · book · Fiction
Spine number 25
Crooked House
Charles Hayward hopes to marry Sophia Leonides, but the poisoning of her wealthy grandfather places her entire household under suspicion. The family’s shared home becomes a study in dependence, resentment and the difficulty of seeing loved ones clearly.
1949 · book · Fiction
Spine number 26
A Murder Is Announced
A newspaper notice invites the neighbours to a murder at Little Paddocks, and curiosity brings them to the house at the appointed hour. What seems a social entertainment becomes a real investigation for Miss Marple, amid the uncertainties of post-war village life.
1950 · book · Fiction
Spine number 27
A Daughter’s a Daughter
Ann Prentice’s hope of remarriage meets resistance from her daughter Sarah, turning affection into a struggle over independence. Published as Mary Westmacott, the novel examines the damage that love can do when it becomes possessive. Christie developed it from an earlier play.
1952 · book · Fiction
Spine number 28
After the Funeral
A relative’s tactless remark at a funeral raises the possibility that the dead man was murdered. When a second death follows, Poirot is asked to examine a family whose expectations of inheritance complicate every account. The novel first appeared in America as Funerals Are Fatal.
1953 · book · Fiction
Spine number 29
The Mousetrap
Guests at an isolated country guesthouse learn that a murderer may be among them while snow prevents an easy escape. The play develops its mystery through guarded histories and shifting suspicions. First staged in 1952, it was published by Samuel French in 1954; the publication date is used for this entry.
1954 · play · Fiction
Spine number 30
Witness for the Prosecution
Leonard Vole faces trial for the murder of a wealthy widow, with his future depending on evidence whose meaning keeps changing. Christie expanded her earlier short story into a courtroom drama that puts testimony itself under pressure. The play opened in 1953 and was first published in 1954.
1954 · play · Fiction
Spine number 31
The Burden
Two sisters’ lives become bound together by a love that is difficult to separate from jealousy and obligation. The last of Christie’s six Mary Westmacott novels explores the demands of devotion and the possibility that protection can become a form of control.
1956 · book · Fiction
Spine number 32
4.50 from Paddington
Looking through the window of a passing train, Elspeth McGillicuddy sees a woman being strangled, but no body is found. Miss Marple believes her and enlists the resourceful Lucy Eyelesbarrow to investigate. The American edition was titled What Mrs McGillicuddy Saw!
1957 · book · Fiction
Spine number 33
Ordeal by Innocence
Dr Calgary arrives with evidence that could have cleared a young man convicted of killing his mother, only to learn that he has died in prison. The news brings renewed suspicion to the surviving family, turning an apparent act of reassurance into a disturbing reopening of the past.
1958 · book · Fiction
Spine number 34
The Pale Horse
A murdered priest and a list of names lead Mark Easterbrook towards an old inn associated with strange powers. His inquiries bring ordinary motives into contact with rumours of witchcraft, in a mystery that makes uncertainty about cause and effect part of its menace.
1961 · book · Fiction
Spine number 35
Endless Night
Michael Rogers dreams of building a beautiful home on a piece of land shadowed by local warnings. His account of love and the life he hopes to make there gives this standalone novel the intimacy of a confession and the unease of a Gothic story.
1967 · book · Fiction
Spine number 36
Nemesis
A dead acquaintance leaves Miss Marple instructions to investigate a crime without identifying the victim or explaining what happened. Following the arrangements he has made, she must discover the question before she can answer it. This was the last Miss Marple novel Christie wrote.
1971 · book · Fiction
Spine number 37
Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case
Poirot summons Hastings back to Styles, where age has altered their partnership but a new danger requires their attention. Hastings must act as his friend’s observer while Poirot pursues a killer he calls X. Written during the Second World War and held back for decades, the novel was published in Christie’s lifetime in 1975.
1975 · book · Fiction
Spine number 38
Sleeping Murder
Gwenda’s new seaside home feels strangely familiar, and its rooms awaken a fear she cannot explain. With Miss Marple’s help, she begins to investigate the possibility that her unease belongs to a real event in the past. Written during the Second World War, the novel was published after Christie’s death in 1976.
1976 · book · Fiction · Posthumous
Spine number 39
An Autobiography
Christie looks back on childhood, family life, writing and travel, including her work on archaeological expeditions with Max Mallowan. Begun in 1950 and completed in 1965, the memoir offers her own selective account of the experiences that mattered to her. It was published posthumously in 1977.
1977 · book · Non-fiction · Posthumous
Start with Poirot’s first investigation, sample Miss Marple in short stories, or choose a darker standalone mystery. These four routes introduce different forms of Christie’s attention to what people say and what they leave out.
Where to begin
Start here
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Christie’s first novel introduces Poirot through Hastings’s eager but fallible observations. Its country-house setting gives you a manageable circle of suspects and an early taste of the importance she gives to small inconsistencies.
Not yet in our collection
For shorter reading sessions
The Thirteen Problems
The conversational cases make it easy to read one puzzle at a time. Miss Marple’s comparisons with village life introduce her unsentimental view of people, while the different storytellers let you test your judgement against theirs.
Not yet in our collection
For a darker standalone mystery
And Then There Were None
Choose this for mounting suspense and an isolated group with no familiar detective to provide reassurance. It is a more severe reading experience than the sociable Poirot and Marple stories, with suspicion spreading through every encounter.
Not yet in our collection
Read next
Five Little Pigs
Move on to a Poirot investigation built from memories rather than a fresh crime scene. Comparing the witnesses’ accounts rewards close attention to voice and feeling, and shows how much Christie can do with a small group recalling the same day.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1920
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
book
A poisoning at Styles Court draws the wounded soldier Hastings into a household full of competing loyalties. His friend Hercule Poirot, a Belgian refugee, brings an exacting eye to the evidence in Christie’s first novel.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1922
The Secret Adversary
book
Short of money after the First World War, Tommy and Tuppence offer their services as adventurers and become entangled in the search for a missing woman and dangerous documents. Their first appearance combines a conspiracy thriller with the energy of two friends improvising their way through trouble.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1924
Poirot Investigates
collection
Poirot and Hastings tackle stolen jewels, disappearances and suspicious deaths in a series of compact investigations. This entry represents the original eleven-story British collection, bringing together cases previously published in magazines.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1926
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
book
Poirot’s retirement in King’s Abbot is interrupted when a wealthy neighbour is found murdered in his study. Dr Sheppard records an investigation in which village gossip, blackmail and the handling of information matter as much as physical clues. The novel appeared in book form in 1926 after serialisation as Who Killed Ackroyd? in 1925.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1929
Partners in Crime
collection
Tommy and Tuppence take charge of a detective agency and find that an apparently ordinary business can bring distinctly dangerous clients. These linked stories put their partnership to work on thefts, deceptions and murder, with room for humour alongside the investigations.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1930
Giant’s Bread
book
Vernon Deyre’s devotion to music places difficult demands on the people who love him and on the life he might otherwise lead. Christie’s first novel as Mary Westmacott explores ambition, emotional dependence and the cost of artistic work.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1930
The Murder at the Vicarage
book
An unpopular colonel is found shot in the vicar’s study, leaving St Mary Mead with abundant suspects and no shortage of opinions. Miss Marple’s first novel sets her understanding of human behaviour against the village’s tangled accounts of itself.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1930
The Mysterious Mr Quin
collection
The observant Mr Satterthwaite encounters Harley Quin, a stranger whose appearances give old events and troubled relationships a different meaning. Twelve stories bring detection close to the supernatural, leaving an air of uncertainty around the man who helps others see.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1932
The Thirteen Problems
collection
Friends take turns recounting puzzling crimes, expecting to test one another’s ingenuity over an evening’s conversation. Miss Marple listens and finds telling parallels in everyday village life. The collection gathers thirteen cases, including her debut story, The Tuesday Night Club, first published in 1927.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1934
Murder on the Orient Express
book
A passenger is murdered while a snowbound train is cut off from outside help, and Poirot must question the people sharing the journey. The confined setting turns timetables, small objects and conflicting testimony into the materials of an unusually concentrated investigation.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1934
Unfinished Portrait
book
A painter meets Celia at a moment of profound despair and listens as she recounts the losses and attachments that have shaped her life. Published as Mary Westmacott, this completed novel draws on autobiographical material while remaining a work of fiction.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1936
The ABC Murders
book
Letters sent to Poirot announce a succession of murders whose victims and locations follow an alphabetical pattern. The investigation moves beyond a single household into a frightened public world, asking whether the apparent pattern can be trusted.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1937
Death on the Nile
book
Poirot’s Egyptian holiday brings him into the orbit of a wealthy young woman, her husband and a bitterly unhappy former friend. When murder interrupts a river cruise, private resentments and the passengers’ movements become evidence in a tightly plotted travel mystery.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1939
And Then There Were None
book
Ten people arrive on an island off the Devon coast and discover that their absent host knows troubling details of their pasts. As deaths begin to echo a nursery rhyme, the guests must reckon with the possibility that the danger is among them. First published in Britain in 1939 under a different title, the novel uses the title of its 1940 American edition here.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1941
Evil Under the Sun
book
A seaside holiday gives Poirot plenty of opportunity to observe the tensions surrounding Arlena Stuart, an actress whose presence unsettles her fellow guests. Her murder turns the resort’s apparent idleness into a demanding puzzle of opportunity and appearances.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1942
Five Little Pigs
book
A young woman asks Poirot to reconsider the murder for which her mother was convicted sixteen years earlier. He compares the memories of five witnesses, finding that old feelings can distort a story as effectively as a lie. First published in the United States as Murder in Retrospect in 1942, it appeared under its British title in 1943.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1942
The Body in the Library
book
The Bantrys wake to discover an unknown young woman’s body in their library, an intrusion that threatens their comfortable reputation. Mrs Bantry calls on Miss Marple to investigate a mystery connecting the country house with a very different social world.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1944
Absent in the Spring
book
Stranded alone while travelling home from Iraq, Joan Scudamore has little to occupy her except her own memories. This Mary Westmacott novel turns an interruption to a journey into an unsettling examination of the gap between self-image and other people’s experience.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1944
Death Comes as the End
book
Renisenb returns to her family in ancient Egypt and finds the household disrupted by her father’s new concubine. A death exposes tensions that familiar domestic routines have concealed. Drawing on ancient Egyptian letters, the novel first appeared in the United States in 1944, before its British publication in 1945.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1944
Towards Zero
book
A gathering at a seaside house brings a tennis player, his present wife and his former wife into uncomfortable proximity. Superintendent Battle’s investigation follows the earlier decisions and encounters that converge on a murder. The book followed a three-part American magazine serial in 1944.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1946
Come, Tell Me How You Live
book
Christie recalls travelling and working with her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan in Syria and Iraq. The memoir attends to the practical arrangements, personalities and mishaps of expedition life, offering a view of the daily work behind an excavation.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1946
The Hollow
book
Poirot arrives for lunch at the Angkatells’ country house to find a dying man beside the swimming pool. What first resembles a staged scene opens into an investigation shaped by marriage, desire and the loyalties of the people present.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1947
The Labours of Hercules
collection
Before retiring, Poirot resolves to choose twelve cases that echo the labours of his mythological namesake. The resulting stories translate heroic tasks into modern investigations involving animals, reputations, disappearances and deception. Stories first appearing in magazines from 1939 were gathered into this collection in 1947.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1948
The Rose and the Yew Tree
book
A socially ambitious man’s relationship with an upper-class woman draws love into the pursuit of status. This Mary Westmacott novel considers the consequences of wanting a different life, with emotional and social ambition taking the place of a detective puzzle.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1949
Crooked House
book
Charles Hayward hopes to marry Sophia Leonides, but the poisoning of her wealthy grandfather places her entire household under suspicion. The family’s shared home becomes a study in dependence, resentment and the difficulty of seeing loved ones clearly.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1950
A Murder Is Announced
book
A newspaper notice invites the neighbours to a murder at Little Paddocks, and curiosity brings them to the house at the appointed hour. What seems a social entertainment becomes a real investigation for Miss Marple, amid the uncertainties of post-war village life.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1952
A Daughter’s a Daughter
book
Ann Prentice’s hope of remarriage meets resistance from her daughter Sarah, turning affection into a struggle over independence. Published as Mary Westmacott, the novel examines the damage that love can do when it becomes possessive. Christie developed it from an earlier play.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1953
After the Funeral
book
A relative’s tactless remark at a funeral raises the possibility that the dead man was murdered. When a second death follows, Poirot is asked to examine a family whose expectations of inheritance complicate every account. The novel first appeared in America as Funerals Are Fatal.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1954
The Mousetrap
play
Guests at an isolated country guesthouse learn that a murderer may be among them while snow prevents an easy escape. The play develops its mystery through guarded histories and shifting suspicions. First staged in 1952, it was published by Samuel French in 1954; the publication date is used for this entry.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1954
Witness for the Prosecution
play
Leonard Vole faces trial for the murder of a wealthy widow, with his future depending on evidence whose meaning keeps changing. Christie expanded her earlier short story into a courtroom drama that puts testimony itself under pressure. The play opened in 1953 and was first published in 1954.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1956
The Burden
book
Two sisters’ lives become bound together by a love that is difficult to separate from jealousy and obligation. The last of Christie’s six Mary Westmacott novels explores the demands of devotion and the possibility that protection can become a form of control.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1957
4.50 from Paddington
book
Looking through the window of a passing train, Elspeth McGillicuddy sees a woman being strangled, but no body is found. Miss Marple believes her and enlists the resourceful Lucy Eyelesbarrow to investigate. The American edition was titled What Mrs McGillicuddy Saw!
Not yet in our collection
Published 1958
Ordeal by Innocence
book
Dr Calgary arrives with evidence that could have cleared a young man convicted of killing his mother, only to learn that he has died in prison. The news brings renewed suspicion to the surviving family, turning an apparent act of reassurance into a disturbing reopening of the past.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1961
The Pale Horse
book
A murdered priest and a list of names lead Mark Easterbrook towards an old inn associated with strange powers. His inquiries bring ordinary motives into contact with rumours of witchcraft, in a mystery that makes uncertainty about cause and effect part of its menace.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1967
Endless Night
book
Michael Rogers dreams of building a beautiful home on a piece of land shadowed by local warnings. His account of love and the life he hopes to make there gives this standalone novel the intimacy of a confession and the unease of a Gothic story.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1971
Nemesis
book
A dead acquaintance leaves Miss Marple instructions to investigate a crime without identifying the victim or explaining what happened. Following the arrangements he has made, she must discover the question before she can answer it. This was the last Miss Marple novel Christie wrote.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1975
Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case
book
Poirot summons Hastings back to Styles, where age has altered their partnership but a new danger requires their attention. Hastings must act as his friend’s observer while Poirot pursues a killer he calls X. Written during the Second World War and held back for decades, the novel was published in Christie’s lifetime in 1975.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1976
Sleeping Murder
book · Posthumous
Gwenda’s new seaside home feels strangely familiar, and its rooms awaken a fear she cannot explain. With Miss Marple’s help, she begins to investigate the possibility that her unease belongs to a real event in the past. Written during the Second World War, the novel was published after Christie’s death in 1976.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1977
An Autobiography
book · Posthumous
Christie looks back on childhood, family life, writing and travel, including her work on archaeological expeditions with Max Mallowan. Begun in 1950 and completed in 1965, the memoir offers her own selective account of the experiences that mattered to her. It was published posthumously in 1977.
Not yet in our collection
Agatha Christie (1890–1976) was an English novelist and playwright whose detective stories turn on concealed motives, misleading appearances and the interpretation of evidence. Her best-known investigators are Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Among her major novels are The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), Murder on the Orient Express (1934) and And Then There Were None (1939).
Born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller in Torquay on 15 September 1890, she worked as a nurse and in a hospital dispensary during the First World War. Her knowledge of medicines informed the poisoning plot of her first published novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920). After marrying the archaeologist Max Mallowan in 1930, she joined excavations in the Middle East, experiences recalled in Come, Tell Me How You Live (1946).
Christie also published six novels about relationships under the name Mary Westmacott and wrote for the theatre, including The Mousetrap and Witness for the Prosecution. She died on 12 January 1976. Sleeping Murder and her autobiography appeared after her death, extending a career that had encompassed village mysteries, international thrillers and psychological fiction.