AGATHA CHRISTIE : A VERY ELUSIVE WOMAN PB B – LUCY WORSLEY

** Shortlisted for the @CrimeFest H.R.F. Keating Award ** A smart and highly entertaining portrait of a literary powerhouse – THE TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR A riveting portrait – GUARDIAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR *** Christie lovers should read this biography for the same reason they read her novels. – The Times A model of how to combine biographical information, analysis and literary criticism into a propulsive narrative – Daily Telegraph Worsley s book excels in bringing a broader historical perspective to Christie s life and work, and her enthusiasm is infectious. – Observer Ms Worsley herself writes engagingly… She combines an almost militant support for her subject with a considered analysis of her books and plays. – Economist Nobody in the world was more inadequate to act the heroine than I was. Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was just an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn t? As Lucy Worsley says, She was thrillingly, scintillatingly modern . She went surfing in Hawaii, she loved fast cars, and she was intrigued by the new science of psychology, which helped her through devastating mental illness. So why – despite all the evidence to the contrary – did Agatha present herself as a retiring Edwardian lady of leisure? She was born in 1890 into a world which had its own rules about what women could and couldn t do. Lucy Worsley s biography is not just of an internationally renowned bestselling writer. It s also the story of a person who, despite the obstacles of class and gender, became an astonishingly successful working woman. With access to personal letters and papers that have rarely been seen, Lucy Worsley s biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realise what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was – truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.