Christie has been accused of being snobbish in her concerns. Indeed her works are without exception set among the British upper classes; she herself commented once that she was surprised at the number of servants in her early books. Another term often applied to her is "cozy," because her books are so often set in closed surroundings. Both The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and The Moving Finger take place in small English villages, with the action of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd centering in the household of a wealthy businessman, complete with icily correct butler and nervous parlor maid. The Moving Finger concerns murder and poison pen letters unleashed on the genteel inhabitants of a quiet country village. However, both snobbery and coziness acted as liberating rather than limiting influences on Christie's fiction. During the period in which she produced her best work, murder was a...