Osborne completes his homage to Christie with this third and final adaptation of an original Christie play, following Black Coffee (1998) and The Unexpected Guest (1999). Though the play was written in 1954, the story suffers little from the passage of time, and aside from the static setting, reads well as a novel. Christie's exquisite timing and clever sleight-of-mind tricks are a delight, while Osborne has the good sense not to embroider the tale. A typical closed cast of characters occupies the temporary country home of Henry and Clarissa Hailsham-Brown: the seemingly scatterbrained Clarissa; her stepdaughter, Pippa; the odious Oliver Costello, who has married Pippa's mother; Sir Rowland Delahaye, Clarissa's godfather and a man of honor; an outspoken gardener; a butler; a cook; and Inspector Lord, the rather diffident policeman. When Clarissa discovers a body in the drawing room, she decides that it mustn't be found there. Her plans to dispose of the body are interrupted by the arrival of a rather diffident policeman, Inspector Lord, who has come to check out an anonymous tip that a murder has been committed. Christie's bag of tricks includes hidden doorways, secret drawers, French windows and concealed identitiesDall used to amusing effect. As with Osborne's previous novelizations, this is a welcome addition to the Christie canon and is sure to reach mystery bestseller lists. The cover, with a spider in a web against a green faux-marble background, is as catchy as they come. (Nov.)

Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

无可争议的侦探小说女王，侦探文学史上最伟大的作家之一。

阿加莎•克里斯蒂原名为阿加莎•玛丽•克拉丽莎•米勒，一八九〇年九月十五日生于英国德文郡托基的阿什菲尔德宅邸。她几乎没有接受过正规的教育，但酷爱阅读，尤其痴迷于歇洛克•福尔摩斯的故事。

第一次世界大战期间，阿加莎•克里斯蒂成了一名志愿者。战争结束后，她创作了自己的第一部侦探小说《斯泰尔斯庄园奇案》。几经周折，作品于一九二○正式出 版，由此开启了克里斯蒂辉煌的创作生涯。一九二六年，《罗杰疑案》由哈珀柯林斯出版公司出版。这部作品一举奠定了阿加莎•克里斯蒂在侦探文学领域不可撼动的地位。之后，她又陆续出版了《东方快车谋杀案》、《ABC 谋杀案》、《尼罗河上的惨案》、《无人生还》、《阳光下的罪恶》等脍炙人口的作品。时至今日，这些作品依然是世界侦探文学宝库里最宝贵的财富。根据她的小 说改编而成的舞台剧《捕鼠器》，已经成为世界上公演场次最多的剧目；而在影视改编方面，《东方快车谋杀案》为英格丽•褒曼斩获奥斯卡大奖，《尼罗河上的惨 案》更是成为了几代人心目中的经典。

阿加莎•克里斯蒂的创作生涯持续了五十余年，总共创作了八十部侦探小说。她的作品畅销全世界一 百多个国家和地区，累计销量已经突破二十亿册。她创造的小胡子侦探波洛和老处女侦探马普尔小姐为读者津津乐道。阿加莎•克里斯蒂是柯南•道尔之后最伟大的 侦探小说作家，是侦探文学黄金时代的开创者和集大成者。一九七一年，英国女王授予克里斯蒂爵士称号，以表彰其不朽的贡献。