Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 9
Notes 11
Foreword 13
Preface 15
Introduction 21
1 A Murder is Announced: The Beginning of a Career 29
2 Dumb Witness: The Evidence of the Notebooks 41
Exhibit A The Detection Club 60
3 The Moving Finger: Agatha Christie at Work 66
Exhibit B Other Crime Writers in the Notebooks 102
4 Cat among the Pigeons: The Nursery Rhyme Murders 105
Exhibit C Agatha Christie in the Notebooks 159
5 Blind Man's Buff: A Game of Murder 162
Exhibit D True Crime in the Notebooks 191
6 The Girl in the Train: Murder Aboard 195
7 Elephants Can Remember: Murder in Retrospect 217
Exhibit E N or M? a Titles Quiz 257
8 Destination Unknown: Murder Abroad 259
9 In a Glass Darkly: The Unknown Christie 286
Exhibit F The House of Dreams: Unused Ideas 303
10 Sanctuary: A Holiday for Murder 310
11 Poirot Investigates: The Labours of Hercules 346
Exhibit G Murder is Easy: Seeds of Inspiration 369
12 The Body in the Library: Murder by Quotation 373
Appendix: Swan Song - Two Last Stories 423
The Capture of Cerberus 425
The Incident of the Dog's Ball 453
Agatha Christie Chronology 485
Index of Titles 491