Long before murder podcasts got the nation obsessed with grisly misdeeds, Agatha Christie was the original Queen of Crime. England’s bookshelves are teeming with dog-eared copies of her bestselling crime thrillers, David Suchet’s quizzical face in ‘Poirot’ is never off our TV screens for long, and her murder mystery ‘The Mousetrap’ is the longest-running show in London’s West End.
Now, the Christie worship is going one step further. A life-sized statue of the author has been erected in the Oxfordshire town of Wallingford, where she lived for 40 years. It’s the handiwork of sculptor Ben Twiston-Davies, who also created the book-shaped Christie statue in Covent Garden. He’s depicted her sitting on a bench, looking into the middle distance as though she’s mulling over new ideas for gory ways to die. Being pushed from a bridge? Ingesting poisoned marmalade? Strangulation by ukelele string? (these are all real-life Christie-endorsed murder methods, by the way).
Hundreds of locals and visitors to Wallingford turned out for the grand unveiling of the statue last week. As an added incentive to visit, a special exhibition at nearby Wallingford Museum displays photos and letters from Christie’s quiet but highly productive life on the outskirts of this Oxfordshire town.
She was born in Devon in 1890, into a upper middle class family who home-schooled her, giving her plenty of time to explore her literary leanings. At the age of 30, she made her name with her first crime thriller The Mysterious Affair At Styles, featuring detective Hercule Poirot, and 65 more books followed over the course of her long writing career.
She moved to Wallingford after marrying archaeologist Max Mallowan in 1930, using the town’s sleepy seclusion as the inspiration for innumerable stories about genteel folks whose lives are upended by murder most foul.
Her cultural impact has been immense, although in recent years some of the rough edges have been smoothed from her more controversial stories. The Telegraph recently reported that racist and antisemitic descriptions are gradually being removed from her works in new HarperCollins editions.
These new editions are a sign that there’s still an undimmed appetite for Christie’s works, a century after they first burst onto the scene. And fans will welcome the chance to sit next to the author as she brews up chillingly precise thrillers in her unassuming uniform of tweed suit and sensible lace-up shoes.
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