The Best Agatha Christie Books, According to Agatha Christie

Christie writes that The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is "a general favourite." It was her third novel to feature detective Hercule Poirot, and in this story, Poirot retires to a small English village called King's Abbot. There, a wealthy widow named Mrs. Ferrars unexpectedly commits suicide—and the next day, her fiancé, Roger Ackroyd, is found stabbed to death. Poirot comes out of retirement at the request of Ackroyd's daughter Flora to solve the case.

This Christie mystery was adapted into a 1931 film, the first sound film based on a Christie work. Orson Welles also adapted The Murder of Roger Ackroyd into a radio play in 1939.

This is the only short story collection on Christie's top 10 list, and all of the tales inside feature detective Miss Marple, marking her first appearance in Christie's fiction.

The blurb on the first edition of The Thirteen Problems reads: "Miss Marple, that delightfully clever village spinster who solves the most amazing mysteries quietly and unobtrusively from her chair by the fireside, appears in each of the stories comprising The Thirteen Problems. Each story is a little masterpiece of detection, clever and ingenious, with just that added twist that only Agatha Christie can give."

Murder on the Orient Express marked the tenth book starring detective Hercule Poirot, and Christie ranked this novel in her favorites because it was "a new idea for a plot." The story takes place on the Orient Express train, which has stopped because of heavy snowfall. Poirot, who is on the train traveling home to London, solves the murder of a passenger.

Murder on the Orient Express is touted as "the most widely read mystery of all time," and has been adapted numerous times—including most recently in a 2017 film by Kenneth Branagh, featuring an all-star cast of Michelle Pfeiffer, Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Leslie Odom, Jr., and more.

Not only is And Then There Were None one of Christie's favorite books, in 2015, a public vote named it the best Christie novel. Christie also loves the mystery, and ranked it among her top ten, because it was "a difficult technique which was a challenge and so I enjoyed it, and I think dealt with it satisfactorily."

The "difficult technique" she refers to is the fact that the plot is structured around a children's counting rhyme, where the ten victims are killed in a manner which corresponds to a line of the rhyme—and eventually no one is left.

The Moving Finger made Christie's top 10 list because she re-read it just prior to chronicling her favorite books and "enjoyed reading it again, very much." This is the fourth Miss Marple mystery, and features Miss Marple in a minor role—she only appears in the end of the book, when the police had failed to solve the crime.

The plot: In a small town of Lymstock in Devon, newly arrived residents are siblings Jerry and Joanna Burton. They soon receive anonymous letters accusing them of being lovers, not siblings, and learn that many residents are receiving these "poison pen" letters. When a local lawyer's wife is found dead, the police begin a search for the letter writer.

In this 1944 mystery, an awkward house party gathers at Gull's Point, the seaside home of an elderly widow, Lady Tressilian. Soon, Lady Tressilian's friend dies—seemingly of natural causes—and she is subsequently found murdered and her maid drugged. Superintendent Battle, a detective, and his nephew, are brought in to solve the case. This novel is Battle's fifth and last appearance in Christie's fiction.

Why does Agatha Christie love this book? "I found it interesting to work on the idea of people from different places coming towards a murder, instead of starting with the murder and working from that."

"Writing Crooked House was pure pleasure and I feel justified in my belief that it is one of my best," Christie wrote. She also added, "I found a study of a certain family interesting to explore."

The plot: "The Leonides are one big happy family living in a sprawling, ramshackle mansion. That is until the head of the household, Aristide, is murdered with a fatal barbiturate injection. Suspicion naturally falls on the old man’s young widow, fifty years his junior. But the murderer has reckoned without the tenacity of Charles Hayward, fiancé of the late millionaire’s granddaughter."

Crooked House was adapted into a 2017 film with a script from Downton Abbey's Julian Fellows. It stars Glenn Close, Max Irons, and Stefanie Martini, and is available to stream on Prime Video.

A Murder Is Announced begins with a pronouncement in a local paper that reads "A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, 29 October, at Little Paddocks, at 6.30 pm. Friends accept this, the only intimation." When villagers arrive at Little Paddocks, the lights go out at 6:30 and a gunman is killed.

In 1956, this story became the first Miss Marple to be adapted for television, starring Gracie Fields as Miss Marple and Roger Moore as Patrick Simmons, one of the villagers. It is one of Christie's favorites because, as she writes, "I thought all the characters interesting to write about and felt I knew them quite well by the time the book was finished."

Ordeal by Innocence, Christie explains, is "an idea I had had for some time before starting to work upon it."

In the novel, Rachel Argyle, a mother of five, is murdered. Her son Jacko is arrested for the crime, tried, and convicted. He later dies after six months in prison. Several years after that, a man named Dr. Calgary appears at the Argyle home, saying Jacko is innocent—because his alibi was true. Calgary only just remembered, after recovering from memory loss caused by a concussion. The Argyle family then has to reckon with the fact a murder is still among them.

The book was adapted into a TV show in 2018 starring Bill Nightly, Anthony Boyle, Matthew Goode, Anna Chancellor and more, and is available on Prime Video.

Christie normally wrote her mysteries in three or four months, but she wrote Endless Night, in just six weeks. At the time of her 1972 list of best works, she noted that this novel was her favorite "at present."

The plot: "When penniless Michael Rogers discovers the beautiful house at Gypsy’s Acre and then meets the heiress Ellie, it seems that all his dreams have come true at once. But he ignores an old woman’s warning of an ancient curse, and evil begins to stir in paradise. As Michael soon learns: Gypsy’s Acre is the place where fatal 'accidents' happen."

Upon publication, Endless Night received rave reviews, even though plot elements were re-used from The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Death on the Nile.