Congratulations to our very own Agatha Christie expert! John Curran triumphed in the awards at Bouchercon a few nights ago by winning not one but two presitigious crime-writing awards for his writing debut, Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks.
To celebrate we’ve decided not only to give you an exclusive look at David Suchet’s foreword for the paperback of John’s new book, Agatha Christie’s Murder in the Making, but also to give you an extract from the book which looks at some of the ideas that Agatha Christie never used in her novels.
KILLER READS EXCLUSIVE: David Suchet’s Foreword
When John Curran’s book Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks was published in 2009, the reading public was given something very rare: perhaps the most complete document for any author of the notes and sketches of their novels. Reading the book was like studying the preliminary sketches of any great artist, and in doing so we automatically found ourselves searching for clues. It gave us an insight into the workings of Agatha Christie’s mind – plus the gift of two new unpublished Poirot stories!
Now, we have Agatha Christie’s Murder in the Making. In this truly fascinating book, John Curran not only gives us the facts of what is written in Mrs Christie’s notebooks, but he now uses conjecture firmly based upon these facts to show us how her remarkable novels came to be written. He even manages to get into her mind and into her psychology. He studies her life and her relationships (both personal and professional), and places these facts together with what is in her ‘secret’ notebooks to inform us how she wrote and how her writings were influenced by her daily life and the current affairs of the time.
Poirot is often heard to exclaim to Hastings, ‘The facts, Hastings … the facts!’ These for Poirot are the most important matters to ‘arrange’. And now John Curran in his Murder in the Making becomes himself the veritable Hercule – well … almost!
David Suchet
September 2011
