It was the plotting of crime that fascinated [Agatha Christie], not its often unpleasant end, and it is as a constructor of plots that she stands supreme among modern crime writers. Raymond Chandler once said that plotting was a bore, a necessary piece of journeywork that had to be done, and that the actual writing was the thing that gave the author pleasure. Agatha Christie's feelings were almost the opposite of these….

Her most stunningly original plots are those in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The A.B.C. Murders and Ten Little Niggers (also evasively called And Then There Were None and Ten Little Indians), but although these are her major achievements, she showed from the beginning an extraordinary assurance in handling the devices in a detective story plot.

Her first book. The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published in 1920 but written some years earlier…. In general...