Shedunnit

For many people, their main contact with detective fiction is via film and television adaptations. For a huge global audience, Agatha Christie's work is as often watched as it is read. Any new production is greeted with intense scrutiny, so what is it really like to adapt these stories? Screenwriter Sarah Phelps, the woman behind the recent BBC versions of And Then There Were None, Witness for the Prosecution, Ordeal by Innocence and now The ABC Murders, explains. Find more information about this

Reading crime fiction from the early twentieth century is a really popular activity at Christmas. It's nice to curl up with a good whodunnit by the fire, but if we stop and think about it, reading about complicated ways for people to die is not exactly the most festive thing to do. So why is it that we love crime at Christmas? Contributors: —Cecily Gayford, senior commissioning editor at Profile —Anna Leszkiewicz, deputy culture editor at the New Statesman. Read her article about cosy murder

When Agatha Christie disappeared in 1926, nobody could find her. Books mentioned in order of appearance —The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie —The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie —The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie —An Autobiography by Agatha Christie —The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie —Unnatural Death by Dorothy L Sayers —Agatha Christie: A Biography by Janet Morgan —Agatha by Kathleen Tynan —Agatha Christie and the Missing Eleven Days by Jared Code —Agatha

The detective stories of the 1920s and 30s aren't exactly well known for being at the vanguard of the struggle for gay rights. But there are queer clues everywhere in these books, if you only know where to look for them. Contributors: —JC Bernthal, academic and author of Queering Agatha Christie —Moira Redmond, journalist and blogger at clothesinbooks.blogspot.com Books referenced in order of appearance —Queering Agatha Christie by JC Bernthal —The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie —A Murder is

The detective writers of the 1920s and 1930s weren't working a vacuum. They took a keen interest in the crimes of their time, often weaving elements from actual murder cases into their plots or referencing them directly. And there was one case, a murder both infamous and domestic, that interested the likes of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Anthony Berkeley more than any other. This real life murder mystery has everything: a body hidden in the cellar, adultery, a transatlantic steamship

Why are spinsters always solving mysteries? Contributors: —Rosemary Cresswell, senior lecturer in global history at the University of Hull. Follow her on Twitter @RosieCresswell. —Camilla Nelson, associate professor of writing at the University of Notre Dame Australia. —Helen Parkinson Further reading: —A field guide to spinsters in English fiction —'Surplus women': a legacy of World War One? —Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the First World War by Virginia

For a couple of decades between the first and second world wars, something mysterious happened. A golden age of detective fiction dawned, and people around the world are still devouring books from this time by Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham, Anthony Berkeley, Gladys Mitchell, Ngaio Marsh, Josephine Tey and more. In this podcast, Caroline Crampton will be unravelling the mysteries behind such classic detective stories, looking at the social, literary and political context in