Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, was a British author known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End of London since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime"—a moniker which is now trademarked by her estate—or the "Queen of Mystery". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.
Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress, is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens. It was originally published as a serial from 1837 to 1839 and as a three-volume book in 1838. The story follows the titular orphan, who, after being raised in a workhouse, escapes to London, where he meets a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal Fagin, discovers the secrets of his parentage, and reconnects with his remaining family.
Agatha Christie's Poirot, or simply Poirot, is a British mystery drama television programme that aired on ITV from 8 January 1989 to 13 November 2013. The ITV show is based on many of Agatha Christie's famous crime fiction series, which revolves around the fictional private investigator, Hercule Poirot. David Suchet starred as the fictional detective. Initially produced by LWT, the series was later produced by ITV Studios. The series also aired on VisionTV in Canada and on PBS and A&E in the US.
Hallowe'en Party is a work of detective fiction by English writer Agatha Christie, first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club in November 1969 and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. This book was dedicated to writer P. G. Wodehouse. It has been adapted for television, radio, and most recently for the film A Haunting in Venice (2023).
Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, was an English author of thrillers and psychological murder mysteries.
Birds of a Feather is a British sitcom originally broadcast on BBC One from 16 October 1989 to 24 December 1998, then revived on ITV from 2 January 2014 to 24 December 2020. The series stars Pauline Quirke and Linda Robson, with Lesley Joseph. It was created by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, who also wrote many of the episodes.
Pauline Perpetua Sheen is an English actress. She began her career with roles on various television series, before fronting her own comedy sketch show, Pauline's Quirkes, in 1976. She later starred as Vicky Smith on the BBC drama series Angels (1982–1983), and achieved fame with her portrayal of Sharon Theodopolopodous on the long-running sitcom Birds of a Feather, for which she won a British Comedy Award and was nominated on three occasions for a National Television Award. In 1997, she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress for her role in the BBC miniseries The Sculptress. Between 2010 and 2012, Quirke played Hazel Rhodes on the ITV soap opera Emmerdale.
Minette Caroline Mary Walters DL is an English writer.
Lesley Diana Joseph is an English actress and broadcaster, whose career on stage and screen spans over fifty years. She is best known for playing Dorien Green in the television sitcom Birds of a Feather from 1989 to 1998 and again from 2014 to 2020. Other television credits include Absurd Person Singular (1985) and Night and Day (2001–2003).
Dead Man's Folly is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in October 1956 and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 5 November of the same year. The US edition retailed at $2.95 and the UK edition at twelve shillings and sixpence (12/6). It features Hercule Poirot and Ariadne Oliver.
Linda Patricia Mary Robson Dunford is an English actress and television presenter. She is best known for playing Tracey Stubbs in the sitcom Birds of a Feather and her appearances as a weekly panellist on the ITV series Loose Women.
Caroline Goodall Pecorini is an English–Australian actress, screenwriter and producer. Awards and nominations include Best Actress nominations AFI Awards for her roles in the 1989 miniseries Cassidy and the 1995 film Hotel Sorrento, a Logie Awards Nomination for the mini series A Difficult Woman, and a Best Actress award. Her film appearances include Hook (1991), Cliffhanger (1993), Schindler's List (1993), Disclosure (1994), White Squall (1996), The Princess Diaries (2001) and The Best of Me (2014).
Anna Maxwell Martin, sometimes credited as Anna Maxwell-Martin, is a British actress. She won two British Academy Television Awards, for her portrayals of Esther Summerson in the BBC adaptation of Bleak House (2005) and N in the Channel 4 adaptation of Poppy Shakespeare (2008). She is also known for her roles as DCS Patricia Carmichael in BBC One crime drama Line of Duty (2019–2021) and Kelly Major in Code 404 (2020–2022). From 2016-2022, Martin starred in the BBC comedy Motherland, for which she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Female Comedy Performance.
Emmanuèle Bernheim was a French writer. She was the daughter of art collector André Bernheim and sculptress Claude de Soria. In 1993 she won the Prix Médicis with her book Sa femme. She wrote the screenplay of feature films Swimming Pool (2003) and 5x2 (2004), both directed by François Ozon. She lived in Paris and also worked for television. In 1998 she wrote Vendredi soir, a novel that was adapted into a film by Claire Denis in 2002. She also worked with Michel Houellebecq on a film adaptation of his novel Platform.
North & South is a British television historical drama programme, produced by the BBC and originally broadcast in four episodes on BBC One in November and December 2004. The serial is based on the 1855 Victorian novel North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell and takes place in the years surrounding the Great Exhibition of 1851.
Lindsay Ashford is a British crime novelist and journalist. Her style of writing has been compared to that of Vivien Armstrong, Linda Fairstein and Frances Fyfield. Many of her books follow the character of Megan Rhys, an investigative psychologist.
Missing is a British daytime television crime drama series starring Pauline Quirke and Mark Wingett. The series is set in a busy, under-resourced missing-persons unit, and follows the team led by DS Mary Jane "MJ" Croft (Quirke). The first series of five episodes aired on BBC One in 2009, with an extended second series of 10 episodes airing in 2010. It was filmed in and around Dover, and Tonbridge. The series also starred Felix Scott and Pooja Shah as Croft's sidekicks, Jason Doyle and Amy Garnett. Guest stars who appeared throughout the series run include Paul Nicholas, Brooke Kinsella, Gary Lucy, and Sylvia Syms.
Goggle-Eyes, or My War with Goggle-Eyes in the US, is a children's novel by Anne Fine, published by Hamilton in 1989. It features a girl who thinks she hates her mother's boyfriend. In the frame story, set in a Scottish day school, that girl Kitty tells her friend Helen about hating her mother's boyfriend.
Quirke is a crime drama television series that was first broadcast on BBC One and RTÉ One in 2014. The three-part series is based on the Quirke novels by John Banville, writing under the pseudonym Benjamin Black, and was adapted by Andrew Davies and Conor McPherson.
