Table of Contents
Preface: Hiding in Plain Sight xiii
Part 1 Victorian Girl - 1890s
1 The House Where I Was Born 3
2 Insanity in the Family 8
3 The Thing in the House 13
4 Ruined 20
Part 2 Edwardian Debutante - 1900s
5 Waiting for The Man 29
6 Best Victorian Lavatory 33
7 The Gezireh Palace Hotel 36
8 Enter Archibald 42
Part 3 Wartime Nurse - 1914-18
9 Torquay Town Hall 51
10 Love and Death 60
11 Enter Poirot 67
12 The Moorland Hotel 73
Part 4 Bright Young Author - 1920s
13 Enter London 79
14 Enter Rosalind 84
15 The British Mission 88
16 Thrillers 95
Part 5 1926
17 Sunningdale 107
18 The Mysterious Affair at Styles 114
19 Disappearance 123
20 The Harrogate Hydropathic Hotel 134
21 Reappearance 156
Part 6 Plutocratic Period - 1930s
22 Mesopotamia 173
23 Enter Max 182
24 I Think I Will Marry You 188
25 Eight Houses 197
26 The Golden Age 210
Part 7 Wartime Worker - 1940s
27 Beneath the Bombs 221
28 A Daughter's a Daughter 232
29 Life Is Rather Complicated 243
30 By Mary Westmacott 253
Part 8 Taken at the Flood - 1950s
31 A Big Expensive Dream 263
32 They Came to Baghdad 270
33 Christie-Land after the War 280
34 Second Row in the Stalls 289
35 A Charming Grandmother 297
Part 9 Not Swinging - 1960s
36 The Mystery of the Christie Fortune 305
37 A Queer Lot 315
38 Lady Detectives 324
39 To Know When to Go 330
Part 10 Curtain - 1970s
40 Winterbrook 337
41 After the Funeral 348
Sources 357
Acknowledgements 365
Notes 367
Index 399
Picture Acknowledgements 415