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Agatha Christie fans gather in Golden Age dress for HarperCollins' sold-out 'A Christie for Christmas'
Over 200 Agatha Christie fans gathered in Golden Age attire on the 17th floor of the News Building for HarperCollins’ sold-out event, ’A Christie for Christmas’ last night (19th November) as Bella Mackie, Vaseem Khan, Lucy Foley and others shared their dedication to the iconic author.
The inaugural event on Tuesday evening celebrated Christie’s work, the many screen adaptations and the iconic author’s enduring legacy. Estates publisher David Brawn also unveiled the new mystery limited edition of Christie’s And Then There Were None, which contains the solution in a sealed envelope at the back of the book. There will only be 20,000 copied printed with all the available copies at the event selling out.
Guests asstembled at the publisher’s offices in London Bridge on the snowy evening with a live saxophonist playing 1930s’ jazz songs and classic Poirot theme tunes. Author Bella Mackie began the evening by discussing how Christie inspired her books, followed by a panel featuring writers Jane Casey, Suk Pannu and Khan discussing the enduring popularity of And Then There Were None and its impact on modern crime writing. The second panel heard authors Mark Aldridge, Sophie Hannah and Foley discuss Christie’s impact on their work. Both panels were led by broadcaster and debut crime writer Jeremy Vine.
Author Stephanie Merritt, also known as S J Parris, asked Mackie about how Christie influenced her works such as How To Kill Your Family and What A Way To Go (both published by Borough Press).
Mackie revealed she has listened to Christie’s stories every night before going to sleep for the last 25 years but disputed the "cosy crime" label sometimes associated with the author.
“She knows how to engage you, hook you… and keep you there... you’re constantly thinking, who’s done this? What’s the motive? She’ll throw in the red herrings, the false starts, she’s a master of it but there’s more to it. There’s a warmth to Christie’s books that you don’t always get with crime, particularly not modern crime, the way you feel you’re not going to be traumatised and like you can’t read it at night—though I still can’t read And Then There Were None at night... I wouldn’t say cosy crime though.”
Merritt said: “I think she’s often wrongly labelled as cosy and when people say that they’re often thinking of Joan Hickson [who portrayed Miss Marple for TV] and cardigans and scones but actually what Christie is portraying is quite dark and dark human motivations—the darker side of our character.”
Mackie said: “I completely agree, I think the ‘cosy’ label comes from nostalgia, we think of 30s, 40s and 50s as a simpler time so we see the settings and think it’s very genteel but under the surface there are all these rippling hatreds, jealousies and animal hatreds… so not cosy but a warmth to them.”
Pannu said: “She is innovative in so many ways that now seem to be very established tropes, such as people being trapped in various places.”
On being asked by Vine if Christie’s use of “head-hopping” in narration is now unpopular with modern publishers, Khan said: “I’ve always argued that a lot of psychological thriller fiction does use head-hopping, they call them unreliable narrators now. But if you look at these characters in And Then There Were None, they’re a microcosm of all the people we hate in society, they’re all interesting… that’s what makes us turn the pages because we want to see them bumped off.”
Such was the popularity of the sold-out event—all tickets sold out within a week of the announcement—that HarperCollins, which saw over 200 guests in Golden Age costume, is planning an annual iteration. Guests received a goody bag with many also winning prizes for their knowledge of the author and for best costume.
