Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman

 Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman by Dr. Lucy Worsley  432 pp.

Dr. Lucy Worsley is a historian, well-known to watchers of British television documentaries, of which I am one. Those familiar with her will know she has a slight speech impediment. So I knew this while embarking of the audiobook version of this biography. I'll admit, it was occasionally annoying to listen to but the book itself is a very detailed account of the 85 years of Agatha Miller Christie Mallowan's life with all its ups and downs. Born in the last decade of the Victorian era, she was raised in an upper class household, not formally educated, nor expected to become a "working woman" because that "just wasn't done." With the change to the new century and then the advent of World War I, along with family financial difficulties, Agatha became a working woman. She married Archibald Christie at the beginning of the War and published her first book The Mysterious Affair at Styles in 1921. She continued her prolific writing until Postern of Fate in 1973. During that time she had a child, had her mysterious disappearance, divorced Archibald, and remarried a much younger archaeologist named Max Mallowan while continuing to write and making multiple extended stays in the Middle East. Her writings include novels, short story collections, plays and movie scripts, some under the name Mary Westmacott.. She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1971. Many years ago I made it a goal to read all of Christie's mysteries which I completed when in my 20s.