It’s rather different from anything I’ve done before,’ she explained in a pre-publication interview, ‘more serious, a tragedy really. The second part is Worsley’s explanation of Christie’s breakdown and disappearance after a suicide attempt. The author has a lovely way to her writing that is soft and engaging so a reader feels as though they are part of a conversation.

A superlative biography of the Queen of Crime, Worsley's page-turning volume is a fitting tribute to Christie's extraordinary life. I was born in Reading (not great, but it could have been Slough), studied Ancient and Modern History at New College, Oxford, and I've got a PhD in art history from the University of Sussex. lucy_worsley, a historian, documentarian + presenter, and Joint Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces in the UK (coolest jobs ever).

Her bestselling books include Queen Victoria; Jane Austen at Home; The Art of the English Murder; and If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home. Where Worsley excels is in her descriptions of Christie’s day-to-day life; we hear virtually nothing of her political opinions as she lives through two world wars, for example, but we do glean a sense of her exceptionalism in the news that she consistently ignored air-raid sirens and simply turned over in bed. So I say…read the autobiography, which is truthfully more revelatory and amusing than Worsley’s pull quotes. Worsley pays a lot of attention to the missing eleven days but doesn't ultimately come up with anything different. Her publishers found her a formidable client, so there was definitely ambition there even if she wouldn't admit to it.

I've never read anything by Worsley before, nor - despite her ubiquity - watched any of her programmes.With access to personal letters and papers that have rarely been seen, Lucy Worsley’s biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realize what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was—truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century. You can treat your "subject" with respect without whitewashing their actions/traits or "sterilising" them to boring non-humans. The most interesting piece of information that I gleaned was that despite what we may see as a successful career, Christie struggled with finances and taxes her entire adult life.

But as for reading about her life, Christie’s own fascinating Autobiography is the most interesting book by far. I found this book to be an incredibly well written piece that gave me a terrific introductory education on Agatha Christie.

There is a lot I already new about Agatha Christie but many gaps were filled with this thorough and entertaining story of her life.

It’s astonishing,’ she wrote of non-detective fiction, ‘how one always wants to do something that isnt quite one’s work. Lucy Worsley is a brilliant detective into the letters, the emotion, the drive of Christie, the ambition. Page 294: Suddenly, she explained, she was enjoying working on her play, ‘that wonderful moment in writing which does not usually last long, but which carries one on with a terrific verve as a large wave carries you to shore . Page 295: Perhaps Gregg’s real beef was that Agatha didn’t feel a strong need to be liked: as Cotes admitted, ‘she wished at all times to relieve herself of spare talk and theatrical chitter-chatter. An introvert who was uncomfortable with the spotlight, she was also reluctant naming herself as an author, no doubt due to her Victorian upbringing, when women of her station were not supposed to work for a living.Its exuberance captures the joyful, lively Agatha who hid her joyful liveliness from people she didn’t know well.