Bloomsbury Handbook to Agatha Christie

Mary Anna Evans is an Assistant Professor of Professional Writing at the University of Oklahoma, USA. Her fourteen crime novels have received recognition including the Benjamin Franklin Award and three Florida Book Awards bronze medals. She holds an MFA in creative writing and is a doctoral researcher at the University of Exeter. Her work has appeared in publications including Feminist Studies, The Atlantic, The Louisville Review, and CrimeReads. J.C. Bernthal is Visiting Lecturer at Middlesex University, UK. His publications include Queering Agatha Christie, The Ageless Agatha Christie and, with Rebecca Mills, Agatha Christie Goes to War. Bernthal founded the annual international Agatha Christie conferences in 2014 and sits on the editorial boards of Crime Fiction Studies and Clues: A Journal of Detection. Bernthal won the Popular Culture Association’s Dove Award for crime fiction scholarship in 2020.

With well-established approaches to Christie alongside hitherto understudied or new(er) approaches, the Handbook can serve as a starting point into Christie Studies, while it also presents innovative interpretations and an impressive amount of thorough research to non-newcomers to Christie.

• DedicationForeword - Val McDermidPART ONE: AGATHA CHRISTIE, THE WOMAN AND THE WRITERIntroduction, and a Chronology - Mary Anna Evans and J.C. BernthalMy Grandmother, Agatha Christie - Mathew PrichardPART TWO: CRITICAL APPROACHES“The Creative Impulse” and the Middlebrow Woman Detective Author - Rebecca MillsChristie’s Clues as Information - Michelle M. KazmerReading Agatha Christie Through A Feminist Lens - Mary Anna EvansQueer Clues to Christie - J.C. BernthalAnthropocene and Archetype: Christie Does Ecocriticism - Susan RowlandThe Fabulous Flapper: Psychogeography and the Female Detective - Sarah MartinBeit Agatha: Reading the Contemporary Middle East in Agatha Christie’s Novels - Nadia AtiaPART THREE – CHRISTIE AND SOCIETYChristie and the Carnage of War - J.C. BernthalOf Race, Law, and Order: Colonial Ghosts in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None - Meta G. CarstarphenAgatha Christie and the State - Mary EvansHouse and Home: The Country House - Brittain BrightAgatha Christie, The Law, and Justice - Mary Anna EvansChristie and Christianity - J.C. BernthalWeapon of Choice: Poison, Christie, and the Golden Age of Detective Fiction - Kathryn HarkupPART FOUR -- BEYOND THE CRIME NOVELSHiding in Plain Sight: The Mary Westmacott Novels - Merja MakinenChristie’s Radio Broadcasts for the BBC - Vike Martina Plock“A Glorious Gamble”: Agatha Christie and the Theater - Benedict MorrisonFilm and Television Adaptations of Agatha Christie - Mark AldridgeLegacies - Barbara Peters, with Martin Edwards, Rhys Bowen, Ragnar Jónasson, and L. Alison HellerList of PlatesList of FiguresList of ContributorsAcknowledgements