Agatha Christie and the Metaphysics of Murder

The twentieth-century literary critic Edmund Wilson chided Agatha Christie for her “mawkishness and banality” and declared her work “literally impossible to read.” Even if this were so, that Agatha Christie’s books were mere trash of no intellectual substance whatever, the fact that they were (and are) of such worldwide appeal might be worth investigating. How is it that books whose action takes place in a social milieu so completely alien to that of the vast majority of mankind were nevertheless able to capture their imagination? Does this not suggest some skill on the part of the author? Agatha Christie and the Metaphysics of Murder investigates the philosophy behind the Queen of Crime’s bestselling books, arriving at conclusions that will surprise readers who might dismiss them as lightweight fluff.