Hickory Dickory Dock: Collins Agatha Christie ELT Readers

English author Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, DBE (née Miller; 15 September 1890-12 January 1976) wrote 66 detective novels and 14 collections of short stories, many of which featured the fictitious investigators Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Additionally, she published six books under the name Mary Westmacott. On September 15, 1890, Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in Torquay, Devon, into a prosperous upper-middle-class family. Her parents were Frederick Alvah Miller and Clarissa Margaret "Clara" Miller, née Boehmer. Christie has always been a keen reader. At the age of 10, she created her first poem, "The Cow Slip." Her mother took her to Paris in 1905, where she attended several boarding schools that emphasized piano and vocal instruction. At the age of 16, Christina Christie traveled to Egypt with her mother Clara, and began penning her first short stories. Writing "The House of Beauty" and other short pieces on "madness and dreams," she was inspired by her experiences in Cairo. Agatha accepted Archie's marriage proposal and they were married on Christmas Eve 1914 at Emmanuel Church in Clifton, Bristol. Archie demanded a divorce from Agatha in August 1926. At the age of 85, Christina Christie died on January 12th, 1976. She was buried in a plot that she and her husband had chosen ten years before.

Hercule Poirot doesn’t need all his detective skills to realize something is troubling his secretary, Miss Lemon—she has made three mistakes in a simple letter. It seems an outbreak of kleptomania at the student hostel in which her sister works is distracting his usually efficient assistant.
Deciding that desperate times call for desperate measures, the great detective agrees to investigate. Unknown to Poirot, however, desperation is a motive he shares with a killer. . . .

“When it comes to fiendish plotting, there’s nobody to compare with Agatha Christie.” — Peter Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of the Inspector Banks novels
“The Christie fan of longest standing, who thinks he knows every one of her tricks, will still be surprised by some of the twists here.” — New York Times
“The characters are as good as ever and there is plenty of entertainment.” — Times Literary Supplement (London)