Agatha Christie's first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles,was written towards the end of the First World War, in which she served as a VAD. In it she created Hercule Poirot, the little Belgian detective who was destined to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes. It was eventually published by The Bodley Head in 1920.

First, the mystery man in the church with a bullet-wound... then, the riddle of a dead man's buried treasure... the curious conduct of a caretaker after a fatal riding accident... the corpse and a tape-measure... the girl framed for theft... and the suspect accused of stabbing his wife with a dagger...Six gripping cases with one thing in common - the astonishing deductive powers of Jane Marple.

When it all becomes clear as day,the reader can only say, Now why didn't I think of that?". But he never does. Agatha Christie at her best.'Springfield Republican.

1 Sanctuary

2 Strange Jest

3 Tape-Measure Murder

4 The Case of the Caretaker

5 The Case of the Perfect Maid

6 Miss Marple Tells a Story

7 The Dressmaker's Doll

8 In A Glass Darkly

9 Greenshaw's Folly