Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890 and became, quite simply, the best-selling novelist in history. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written towards the end of the First World War, introduced us to Hercule Poirot, who was to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes. She is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in over 100 foreign languages. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays, and six novels under the name of Mary Westmacott.

'Twelve little masterpieces of detection. Poirot and Agatha Christie at their inimitable best' Sunday Express 'I have often thought that Mrs Christie was not so much the best as the only living writer of the true of classic detective story' Margery Allingham 'A finely shaped book, richly devious and quite brilliant -- by far the best volume of Poirot shorts' San Francisco Chronicle