Book description
A full-length novel by Charles Osborne adapted from Agatha Christie's
stage play, in which a diplomat's wife finds a body that mustn't be discovered…
Following BLACK COFFEE and THE UNEXPECTED GUEST comes the final Agatha
Christie play novelisation, bringing her superb storytelling to a new
legion of fans.
Clarissa, the wife of a Foreign Office diplomat, is given to
daydreaming. 'Supposing I were to come down one morning and find a dead
body in the library, what should I do?' she muses.
Clarissa has her chance to find out when she discovers a body in the
drawing-room of her house in Kent. Desperate to dispose of the body
before her husband comes home with an important foreign politician,
Clarissa persuades her three house guests to become accessories and
accomplices. It seems that the murdered man was not unknown to certain
members of the house party (but which ones?), and the search begins for
the murderer and the motive, while at the same time trying to persuade a
police inspector that there has been no murder at all… 'Reads like
authentic, vintage Christie. I feel sure Agatha would be proud to have
written it.'
Mathew Prichard, Agatha Christie's grandson, on BLACK COFFEE
'Osborne has again enhanced the original.'
Sunday Telegraph, on THE UNEXPECTED GUEST Agatha Christie was born in
Torquay in 1890 and became the best-selling novelist in history. Her
first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, introduced us to Hercule
Poirot, the most popular detective since Sherlock Holmes. She is known
throughout the world as the Queen of Crime and her works have sold over
two billion copies - 80 crime books, 19 plays, and six novels under the
name of Mary Westmacott.
Charles Osborne was born in Brisbane in 1927. He is known
internationally as an authority on opera, though has had a lifelong
passion for Agatha Christie's works. His previous books include The Life
and Crimes of Agatha Christie.
