The 17 Best Agatha Christie Novels

Trains, islands, Nile steamers and one very ordinary English village. Sixty-six novels come down to a shortlist people still fight over.

1

And Then There Were None

Ten strangers on an island, killed one by one to the beat of a nursery rhyme. Her best-selling book.

2

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The 1926 Poirot novel whose narrator changed what a detective story could do.

3

Murder on the Orient Express

A stranded train, thirteen passengers and a solution nobody expects.

4

Death on the Nile

The 1937 Poirot novel set on a Nile steamer full of grudges.

5

The ABC Murders

A serial killer working alphabetically, and a railway guide left by each body.

6

Crooked House

A 1949 standalone Christie named as one of her own favourites.

7

Endless Night

The late, bleak 1967 novel written in the first person by a young man.

8

Five Little Pigs

The 1942 Poirot novel that reconstructs a murder sixteen years afterwards.

9

A Murder Is Announced

The 1950 Marple novel that opens with a murder advertised in the local paper.

10

The Murder at the Vicarage

Miss Marple's first novel, published in 1930.

11

Peril at End House

The 1932 Poirot novel set at a crumbling Cornish house.

12

Cards on the Table

The 1936 novel with four suspects, four sleuths and a bridge game.

13

Curtain

Poirot's last case, written in the 1940s and locked away until 1975.

14

The Body in the Library

The 1942 Marple novel that takes the oldest cliche in the genre at its word.

15

The Pale Horse

The 1961 novel whose poisoning method reportedly helped save a real life.

16

Towards Zero

The 1944 Superintendent Battle novel built backwards from the murder.

17

4.50 from Paddington

The 1957 Marple novel that starts with a murder seen from a passing train.