Agatha Christie - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

The world's best-selling mystery writer, and often referred to as the "Queen of Crime", Agatha Christie is considered a master of suspense, plotting, and characterisation. Some critics however regarded Christie's plotting abilities as considerably exceeding her literary ones. The novelist Raymond Chandler criticised her in his essay, "The Simple Art of Murder", and the American literary critic Edmund Wilson was dismissive of Christie and the detective fiction genre generally in his New Yorker essay, "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?".

Others have criticised Christie on political grounds, particularly with respect to her conversations about and portrayals of Jews. Christopher Hitchens, in his autobiography, describes a dinner with Christie and her husband, Max Mallowan, that became increasingly uncomfortable as the night wore on, where "The anti-Jewish flavour of the talk was not to be ignored or overlooked, or put down to heavy humour or generational prejudice. It was vividly unpleasant". Perhaps this meal was like the 1932ish Baghdad tea, where she stares "unbelievingly", horrified by the first hint of the future, when her host Dr Jordan, Director of Antiquities, pausing while playing Beethoven, says "Our Jews are perhaps different from yours. They are a danger. They should be exterminated."