By Jennifer Uhlarik
My April 1, 2025, release was a romantic mystery set in the Old West. While many of my novels and novellas have elements of mystery and suspense in them, I’d never specifically set out to write a mystery before, so I found myself researching the genre and those who have had successful careers in that genre. This led me to read up on the best-selling novelist of all time, Agatha Christie—and since this is her birth month, I’ll share a bit of my findings about her with you.
Childhood
Young Agatha Christie
The prolific author we know as Agatha Christie was born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller on September 15, 1890. She was the youngest child of three—a “much-loved afterthought” (according to agathachristie.com) of her American father, Frederick and her Irish mother, Clara. Her older brother Monty and older sister Madge were ten and eleven years her senior, respectively. The family lived in Torquay, Devon, England during her early years.
Her mother, Clara, loved Agatha’s natural creativity and wanted her youngest to wait to learn to read until she was eight, but with both her older siblings away at school, young Agatha grew bored—so she taught herself to read. She devoured books. Her creativity also flourished by listening to the made-up stories of her mother, and she and Madge followed in her footsteps with imaginings and stories of their own.
At age eleven, Agatha’s father passed away unexpectedly, leaving Clara and Agatha’s lives in uncertainty. For a time, Agatha attended a girl’s school in Torquay, but she eventually went to a boarding school in Paris, France, for a few years and at age eighteen, spent her three-month debutante season in Cairo, Egypt. With the goal of finding a husband, Agatha emerged from the season with numerous marriage proposals. She turned them all down but the one from her friend, Reginald Lucy. But theirs was not the typical romance. The two struck a bargain—that they would wait for two years to marry, and if, in the meantime, anyone richer or more interesting came along, they would break their engagement and marry the other.
Agatha’s Foray Into Married Life
Reggie Lucy would not end up being Agatha’s husband after all. In 1912, she met Archibald Christie at a party, and the dashing aviator swept her off her feet. They married on Christmas Eve in 1914. However, with World War 1 in full swing, both had jobs to do. Two days later, Archie returned to France, and Agatha returned to the hospital in Torquay where she worked as a nurse.
It was during this time, while working around the dispensary, that Agatha learned of various poisons. And seeing the many Belgians who came to England to escape the horrors of the war in their home country, she began to imagine a Belgian police officer as a character for a story. When her sister challenged her to write a mystery, suggesting that Agatha couldn’t pull off such a feat, Agatha rose to the occasion and wrote The Mysterious Affair at Styles, her very first Hurcule Poirot story.
Agatha and husband Archie
In 1918, the war ended, Archie returned, and the by-now “old married couple” got to begin their marriage in earnest. In the next year—1919—Archie took a job in London, they welcomed their daughter, Rosalind, and Agatha’s first Poirot novel was picked up by a publisher with a request for five more like it. By 1924, Agatha published The Secret Adversary, The Man in the Brown Suit, and The Murder on the Links.
Tragedies Make For New Beginnings
Unhappy with her first publisher, Agatha found a new publishing house who gladly took her on as an author. In 1926, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd came out with great sales and much acclaim, but the tidal wave of newfound success was short-lived. Agatha’s mother passed away, causing Agatha to leave for Torquay to clean out the family home. Grief-stricken at the loss, she found it difficult to write. And while they were separated, Archie and Agatha drifted apart. His eye soon wandered to another woman.
One December night, Agatha found herself in terrible spirits, so she left little Rosalind in the care of the house maids and went for a drive. Her car was later found abandoned, and Agatha was nowhere to be seen. It took some ten days and a nationwide search to discover that she was, in fact, in the care of the Swan Hydropathic Hotel under an assumed name. She had no recollection of who she was, how she’d gotten there, nor did she recognize Archie when he came to see her. This episode became one of great embarrassment to her. In later years, she never spoke of this time with anyone.
Upon her return to London, she and Archie remained separated. Needing an income for herself and her daughter, Agatha compiled some of her short Hurcule Poirot stories, previously published in magazines, into a collection titled The Big Four.
In 1927, still struggling to churn out the next Poirot novel, she began toying with a new detective—Miss Jane Marple, who debuted in The Tuesday Night Club, a short story published in The Royal Magazine. Perhaps the unassuming personality of this amateur sleuth was just what Agatha needed as she continued her healing after her mother’s death, the failure of her marriage, and the mental stress she’d endured. But in 1928, she finalized her divorce, moved to the Canary Islands with Rosalind, and returned to work with her next Poirot story, The Mystery of the Blue Train.
Happiness Leads to New Purpose
Agatha loved to travel and took a trip on the Orient Express to Baghdad. From there, she visited the archeological dig at Ur, where she met the Woolleys, who led the excavation. Returning there the next year (1930), the Woolleys asked Max Mallowan to show her around the area. The two instantly became fast friends, despite the fourteen-year age difference (Agatha was the elder in the relationship). Soon after, Max proposed, and they were married on September 11, 1930. The happy couple fell into a new rhythm. Some of the year, they were on the archeological dig site, where Agatha became a valued member of the team. They summered in her family home in Torquay, spent Christmases with her sister, and the remainder of the year in London. During this time, she turned out two to three novels each year, including Murder on the Orient Express and many others.
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| Agatha and Max Mallowan on their honeymoon in Egypt. |
Even the start of the Second World War couldn’t derail Agatha. She and Max continued in Torquay for a time, each doing their part for the war effort. Agatha returned to work in the hospital dispensary, like she had done during the earlier war, though Max was eventually sent to Cairo. Agatha hoped to find a position near her husband, but that never materialized. She continued working, moving to a different hospital as the war proceeded. Agatha’s daughter, Rosalind, married and had a son, allowing Agatha the joy of visiting her daughter and grandson often. During the course of the war, she also filled her time with writing more than ten novels.
A Prolific Career Winds Down
At the end of World War II, Agatha’s beloved Max returned home, and life resumed. The pair went back to their archaeological digs in Iraq and Syria. Agatha continued to write novels, though she slowed her pace to one novel per year. Max was elevated to new positions in the Archaeology departments of two different universities—the University of London and the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. Many of her stories were turned into stage plays (with some of the scripts being written by Agatha herself), movies, and made-for-television movies. She garnered the attention of queens and dignitaries, as well as everyday readers worldwide.
During World War II, she had penned the final novels for both Hurcule Poirot and Jane Marple, but tucked them away in her home’s safe, in case anything happened to her. In 1975, she pulled Curtain from the safe and let Poirot’s last book go to print. Upon this story’s release, the New York Times published an obituary of the fictional detective—the first time they’d ever done so for a made-up character.
Agatha Christie died on January 12, 1976, and her last novel was published later that year, along with her autobiography in 1977. All told, she wrote sixty-six detective novels and fifteen short story collections, with her sales reaching over 2 billion copies. (Only William Shakespeare and The Bible have sold more).
It’s Your Turn: Are you an Agatha Christie fan? If so, what is your favorite novel and/or character of hers? If you’ve not read her work, what element of her life do you find most interesting? Leave your answer below to be entered in a drawing for a copy of my latest novel, Love and Order: A Three-Part Old West Romantic Mystery.
At twelve, Jennifer Uhlarik swiped a western novel from her brother’s bookshelf and fell in love with the genre. Since attaining a B.A. in writing from University of Tampa, she has published multiple westerns, finaled in and won various writing competitions, and appeared on the ECPA bestseller list numerous times. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband and fur-children. www.jenniferuhlarik.com
Love and Order: A Three-Part Old West Romantic Mystery
Wanted:
Family, Love, and Justice
One Old West Mystery Solved Throughout Three Short Romantic Stories
Separated as children when they were adopted out to different families from an orphan train, the Braddock siblings have each grown up and taken on various jobs within law enforcement and criminal justice.
Youngest child, Callie, has pushed past her insecurities to pursue a career as a Pinkerton agent. Middle child, Andi, has spent years studying law under her adoptive father’s tutelage. And the eldest and only son, Rion, is a rough-and-tumble bounty hunter.
When the hunt for a serial killer with a long history of murders reunites the brother and sisters in Cambria Springs, Colorado, they find themselves not only in a fight for justice, but also a fight to keep their newly reunited family intact. How will they navigate these challenges when further complicated by unexpected romances?
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