While accompanying Mallowan on countless archaeological trips ( spending up to 3 – 4 months at a time in Syria and Iraq at excavation sites at Ur, Ninevah, Tell Arpachiyah, Chagar Bazar, Tell Brak, and Nimrud ), Christie not only wrote novels and short stories, but also contributed work to the archaeological sites, more specifically to the archaeological restoration and labeling of ancient exhibits which includes tasks such as cleaning and conserving delicate ivory pieces, reconstructing pottery, developing photos from early excavations which later led to taking photographs of the site and its findings, and taking field notes.

Christie wrote little of Poirot ’ s childhood though in Three Act Tragedy she writes that he comes from a large family with little wealth.

Christie wrote a concluding novel to her Marple series, Sleeping Murder, in 1940.

In the 1940s, Joan appeared on-stage in an Agatha Christie play, Appointment with Death, which was seen by Christie who wrote in a note to her, " I hope one day you will play my dear Miss Marple ".

Howard Christie wrote that The Italians started numerous and diverse businesses in Tripolitania and Cirenaica.

Time magazine wrote, " In London, the first night of Eugene O ' Neill's Anna Christie, with Pauline Lord in the title role, received a tremendous ovation.

However, on January 26, 1931, I. Khalepsky ( Head of the Department of Mechanisation and Motorisation of the RKKA ) wrote a letter to S. Ginzburg with information obtained via the intelligence service that the Polish government had decided to purchase Vickers 6-Ton light infantry tanks as well as Christie M1931 cavalry tanks and to mass produce them with the assistance of both the British and French.

Walter John Christie, who followed Orwell to Eton, wrote that she preached the virtues of " simplicity, honesty, and avoidance of verbiage ", and pointed out that the qualities Flip most prized were later to be seen in Orwell ’ s writing.

In his book, A Talent to Deceive — An Appreciation of Agatha Christie, the writer and critic Robert Barnard wrote:

It was the last Christie novel published — posthumously — although not the last one Christie actually wrote.

It is generally believed that Christie wrote Curtain ( Hercule Poirot's last mystery, which concludes the sleuth's career and life ) and Sleeping Murder during World War II to be published after her death, and that Sleeping Murder was most probably written sometime during the Blitz, which took place between September 1940 and May 1941.

On 7 June 1940 Edmund Cork wrote to Christie advising her that he would have the necessary ' deed of gift ' drawn up so her husband Max would become the owner of the unpublished Miss Marple novel.

James's début crime novel Cover Her Face in 1962, Christie became aware of the need to think up yet another title for her Miss Marple book ; she duly wrote to Edmund Cork on 17 July 1972 asking him to send her a copy of the unpublished Miss Marple manuscript and a copy of Max's deed of gift.

The last Marple novel Christie wrote, Nemesis, was published in 1971, followed by Christie's last Poirot novel Elephants Can Remember in 1972 and then in 1973 by her very last novel Postern of Fate.

Agatha Christie wrote it years ago but if I was going to pick a swansong book this is certainly the one that I would choose.

The same year he wrote Christie Johnstone, a close study of Scottish fisher folk.

In December 1969, Mountbatten wrote to Christie for a second time after having seen a performance of The Mousetrap.

In 1983 Brinkley wrote and illustrated a book on health and beauty titled Christie Brinkley's Outdoor Beauty and Fitness Book, which topped the New York Times best seller list.

His views were shared by W J L Christie, Indian Civil Service, who wrote a riposte to Orwell in defence of the school in Blackwoods Magazine ( owned and edited by Douglas Blackwood ).

Their other appearances were in Partners in Crime, a 1929 collection of short stories ( each reminiscent of another writer's work ); N or M ?, a 1941 espionage novel ; By the Pricking of My Thumbs ( published in 1968 ); and Postern of Fate in 1973, the last novel Christie ever wrote ( although not the last to be published ).

Maurice Richardson in a short review in the 7 December 1941 issue of The Observer wrote: " Agatha Christie takes time off from Poirot and the haute cuisine of crime to write a light war-time spy thriller.

In the 1940s she appeared on-stage in an Agatha Christie play, Appointment with Death, which was seen by Christie who wrote in a note to her, " I hope one day you will play my dear Miss Marple ".

Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Whimsey ( the respective creations of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers ) have retained Holmes' egotism but not his zest for life and eccentric habits.

More indirectly, Christie ’ s famous character of Hercule Poirot can be compared to an archaeologist in his detailed scrutiny of all facts both large and small.

Holtorf ’ s description of the archaeologist as a detective is very similar to Christie ’ s Poirot who is hugely observant and is very careful to look at the small details as they often impart the most information.

In the 1986 TV play, Murder by the Book, Christie herself ( Dame Peggy Ashcroft ) murdered one of her fictional-turned-real characters, Poirot.

Hercule Poirot (; ) is a fictional Belgian detective, created by Agatha Christie.

By 1930, Agatha Christie found Poirot " insufferable ", and by 1960 she felt that he was a " detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep ".

Yet the public loved him, and Christie refused to kill him off, claiming that it was her duty to produce what the public liked, and what the public liked was Poirot.

This is how Agatha Christie describes Poirot in The Murder on the Orient Express in the initial pages:

In the later novels Christie often uses the word mountebank when Poirot is being assessed by other characters, showing that he has successfully passed himself off as a charlatan or fraud.

Christie made a point of having Poirot supply false or misleading information about himself or his background in order to assist him in obtaining information relevant to a particular case.

" Christie strongly implies that this " quiet retreat in the Ardennes " near Spa is the Poirot family home.

Christie is purposefully vague, as Poirot is thought to be elderly even in the early Poirot novels, and in An Autobiography she admitted that she already imagined him to be an old man in 1920.

Again, Poirot is not reliable as a narrator of his personal history and there is no evidence that Christie sketched it out in any depth.

Beginning with Three Act Tragedy ( 1934 ), Christie had perfected during the inter-war years a sub-genre of Poirot novel in which the detective himself spent much of the first third of the novel on the periphery of events.

In The Agatha Christie Hour, she was portrayed by British actress Angela Easterling, while in Agatha Christie's Poirot, she was portrayed by Pauline Moran.

The 1942 novel Five Little Pigs ( aka Murder in Retrospect ), in which Poirot investigates a murder committed sixteen years before by analysing various accounts of the tragedy, is a Rashomon-like performance that critic and mystery novelist Robert Barnard called the best of the Christie novels.

A 1945 radio series of at least 13 original half-hour episodes ( none of which apparently adapt any Christie stories ) transferred Poirot from London to New York and starred character actor Harold Huber, perhaps better known for his appearances as a police officer in various Charlie Chan films.

On 22 February 1945, " speaking from London, Agatha Christie introduced the initial broadcast of the Poirot series via shortwave.

The character of Jessica Fletcher is thought to be based on a combination of Miss Marple, Agatha Christie herself, and another Christie character, Ariadne Oliver, who often appears in the Hercule Poirot mysteries.

Many of the most popular books of the Golden Age were written by Agatha Christie, who produced a long series of books featuring her detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, amongst others, and usually including a complex puzzle for the reader to try to unravel.

Clouseau's immense ego, eccentricity, embellished French accent and mustache were derived from Hercule Poirot, the famous fictional Belgian detective that featured in the novels of Agatha Christie.