She created the characters Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. She wrote more than 70 novels, including The Murder of Roger Ackroyd 1926 and Ten Little Indians 1939. A number of her books have been filmed, for example Murder on the Orient Express 1975. Her play The Mousetrap, which opened in London 1952, is the longest continuously running show in the world. DBE 1971. She was born in Torquay, married Col Archibald Christie 1914, and served during World War I as a nurse. Her first crime novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles 1920, introduced Hercule Poirot. She often broke "purist" rules, as in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd in which the narrator is the murderer. She caused a nationwide sensation 1926 by disappearing for ten days, possibly because of amnesia, when her husband fell in love with another woman. After a divorce 1928, in 1930 she married the archaeologist Max Mallowan (1904-1978).
