A passable attempt at a biography of the astoundingly prolific mystery writer. The first part covering her childhood, first marriage, and her early career is well done and engaging. Unfortunately the post World War 2 era when Christie became a self-described reclusive ‘sausage factory’ churning out multiple books a year is a little tedious. But it did spark enough interest in the subject to make me want to read a more in-depth and insightful biography on Christie at some point. ( )

DNF... This book was putting me to sleep. So I gave up on it.

I really enjoyed this excellent and very thorough biography of Agatha Christie. It was really interesting to get a clear picture of her life from birth to death---with so many interesting details in between. I felt ashamed of her at the time of her first divorce and her "accidentally" staged disappearance, joy for her when she found love with her second husband, sadness for her at the critical spirit of her daughter, and triumph with her great success. Though some would probably pass out at the idea of me saying this, the destruction of her first marriage seems to have had a lot to do with her success. She chose to focus her attention to things outside her roles as wife and mother---and those two most important relationships suffered. I think the success of her second marriage had a lot to do with the fact that she poured herself into her husband's research and found joy in the same adventures that he did. There's a lesson to be learned here for sure. "The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish pulls it down with her hands." ~ Proverbs 14:1 ( )

The book is well written and, judging from the end notes, well researched and includes an enormous number of short quotations but, having read Christie's autobiography and two earlier biographical works, I don't really feel that I've learned anything new about Agatha Christie. This book did say a little more about her daughter, Rosalind, than previous books. I wondered if the publisher added the subtitle, The Unauthorized Biography, to imply that dirt would be dished. It wasn't. ( )

The book is well written and, judging from the end notes, well researched and includes an enormous number of short quotations but, having read Christie's autobiography and two earlier biographical works, I don't really feel that I've learned anything new about Agatha Christie. This book did say a little more about her daughter, Rosalind, than previous books. I wondered if the publisher added the subtitle, The Unauthorized Biography, to imply that dirt would be dished. It wasn't. ( )