Christieana.(Book Review)

The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie, by Charles Osborne; HarperCollins, 2000, $22.95.

Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days, by Jared Cade; Peter Owen, 2000, $53.95.

Agatha Christie's Miss Marple--Life and Times, by Anne Hart; HarperCollins, 1997, $14.95.

AGATHA CHRISTIE'S books have been a source of unfailing pleasure for me since I was about fourteen. Like the Tintin comics and the films .of Alfred Hitchcock, they have a timeless charm whose beauty is only accentuated by the passing of time. And as time goes on, you discover more and more in these enduring works--subtleties of characterisation, delicacy of line, of gesture, of thought, which impress on you more and more the extraordinary achievement of their creators, in being both popular and of real creative distinction. Plus, they are immense fun--and that is a quality not easily found, in an over-solemn and abstract time.

Even now, Agatha Christie's books are best-sellers--I think she's still not outsold by that other English wizard of suspense, mystery and sheer fun, J.K. Rowling--and her fans are legion, all over the world. These three recent books are of great interest to Christie fans, and though they're not equally well written, they are readable and interesting.

Charles Osborne's book is my favourite in the quality of the writing. The urbane Australian writer, born in Brisbane in 1927, but based in Britain for decades, is an authority on opera, and has written a number of books on literary and musical subjects. He has also "novelised" some of Agatha Christie's plays--with rather disappointing results, in my opinion. But his writing in this book is excellent--informative, funny, entertaining and very sympathetic to Agatha, her life, and her extraordinary literary output--novels, short stories, plays and non-fiction.

Osborne's book is arranged according to the date of release of her books, with each title covered (with no spoilers at all, fortunately), and glimpses given of the life of the author at the time, the reception to the book, and so on. There is also a very good preface which covers Agatha's life from birth to the release of her first book. This wonderful biographical companion should be on the shelves of all Christie fans, not only as thorough reference, but as a great book in its own right.