Lucy Worsley reads her account of the extraordinary life of the 'Queen of Crime', Agatha Christie.

Born in 1890 into a world that had its own rules about what women could and couldn’t do, Agatha Christie became the most prolific detective novelist during the Golden Age of detective fiction, and went on to become the best-selling author of all time.

Here Worsley paints a picture not only of an unlikely heroine, a pioneering and thoroughly modern woman, whose dazzling career included some of the greatest works of crime fiction, but also of a woman whose life was marked by significant losses and reversals of fortune, not to mention dark secrets and uncomfortable truths. From her idyllic Victorian childhood, to her rocky marriage, to her great literary successes with Poirot and Marple, to her mysterious and infamous disappearance at Harrogate, Worsley presents a life fascinating for its mysteries and passions.

Today: after finding herself in demand among the colonials of Egypt, Agatha marries a dashing pilot, and decides to try writing a detective novel...

Read and written by: Lucy Worsley
Producer: Justine Willett
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Photographer: Robert Shiret Show less