Perfect Additions
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890 and is the author of over 80 works, including detective novels and short stories, 19 plays, and six novels published under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published in 1920 and introduced the world to Hercule Poirot, who would become one of the most popular fictional detectives since Sherlock Holmes (as would another of Christie’s sleuths, the amateur detective Miss Marple). In 1952 her play The Mousetrap premiered in London’s West End and has run continuously ever since. Christie’s books have sold more than two billion copies in over 100 languages (said to be outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare), and have been adapted many times for film and television. She was made a dame in 1971 and died in Oxfordshire in 1976. In 2013, she was voted the greatest crime writer of all time by the Crime Writers’ Association.
Sophie Hannah is an internationally bestselling writer of psychological crime fiction, published in 49 languages and 51 territories. In 2014, with the blessing of Agatha Christie’s family and estate, Hannah published a new Poirot novel, The Monogram Murders, which was a bestseller in more than 15 countries. She has since published two more Poirot novels, Closed Casket and The Mystery of Three Quarters, both of which were Sunday Times Top Ten bestsellers. In 2013, Hannah’s novel The Carrier won the Crime Thriller of the Year Award at the Specsavers National Book Awards. She has also published a self-help book, How to Hold a Grudge, two short story collections and five collections of poetry, the fifth of which, Pessimism for Beginners, was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Award. Her poetry is studied at GCSE, A Level and degree level across the UK.