Today is the birthday of my absolute favorite mystery writer, Agatha Christie. It’s also National Cozy Mystery Day. Although, as far as I’m concerned, Isn’t every day? Anyway, I couldn’t let the day pass without acknowledging the Queen of Cozy Mysteries. If you subscribe to my newsletter, you saw the article I included. If you aren’t a subscriber, I recommend it (there’s a link on my website). I don’t want to duplicate my newsletter and post the generic, born/died/yadda-yadda-yadda. So, if you want that, get the newsletter or check out Wikipedia. Instead, I want to talk about, why I love Agatha Christie?
Agatha Christie was a highly successful and prolific writer. She penned 66 detective novels, 14 short story collections (yes, that means more than one story), 6 romances (under the pen name, Mary Westmacott), 19 plays and is the author of the longest running play of all time, MOUSE TRAP. She is even listed by the Guinness Book of world records as the best-selling author of all-time. Regardless of the measuring stick you use to determine success, that’s an impressive body of work. It’s even more impressive when you consider that she didn’t publish her first novel until she was 30 years-old. However, what I really love about Agatha Christie, is her creative (and devious) mind. Have you read THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD? or, AND THEN THERE WERE NONE? If not, I highly recommend them. I still remember my reaction after reading both of those books.
Modern cozy readers may find Christie’s style somewhat outdated and/or old-fashioned in the twenty-first century, but a good mystery is a good mystery, regardless of the time period. Yet, the fact that she wrote the books that she did in the time period that she did, makes them all the more special. She accomplished so much in a time when publishers weren’t falling over themselves to publish books by female authors. They especially, weren’t eager to publish detective fiction from a woman.
Despite the fact that women are still battling for equality today, I’m thankful for Agatha Christie. She paved the way for a wide field of amazing women crime writers. Without her, I might never have fallen in love with mysteries and developed the idea that maybe I too could write and publish a mystery. Today, do yourself a favor and cozy up with one of Agatha Christie’s many books or find one of the movie adaptations and toast to the queen.
