News about Agatha Christie

The BBC has 'revealed the future' of a beloved new murder mystery series that fans have dubbed the 'next Jonathan Creek. Ludwig, which stars David Mitchell, 50, hit BBC One and BBC iPlayer at the end of September and became an instant hit.

Barry Turner discovers whodunnit in the best Classic Crime novels out this month.

Landlady Zohreh Majidian, 60, from Sunningdale, Berkshire was put through a living hell by a high-life fraudster who rented the flat she owned after Christie's former home was converted into luxury flats. With a fleet of luxury cars including two Porsches, a Land Rover and a Mercedes, Permjit Sagoo - dubbed the 'millionaire conman' - convinced his landlady that he earned £177,000 a year as a wealthy businessman and would be a suitable executive tenant. However, the 58-year-old moved into the apartment and lived there for 16 months, while failing to pay a single penny in rent. As she tried to have him evicted, Sagoo then sued Ms Majidian for £50,000 for alleged harassment. The fraudster was finally jailed for more than nine years this week, with a judge telling his victim he thought it highly unlikely she will ever get her money back.

From Towards Zero to Return to Paradise, these are the forthcoming BBC dramas to get excited about in the new few months.

Ludwig hit screens to rave reviews last week - with fans hailing the irreverant murder mystery as 'the next Jonathan Creek' after just one episode. The show, which stars David Mitchell, 50, hit BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Wednesday and fans are already obsessed. In the new series, David plays John 'Ludwig' Taylor, an introverted and reclusive puzzle setter, who against his better judgement, is dragged into an exciting adventure after his identical twin brother goes missing. If you've already binged the series - possible since all episodes are available to stream - you may be looking for your next murder mystery fix. Here's our pick of the genre's five best contenders to scratch the itch.

Tom Chesshyre is author of Slow Trains To Istanbul... And Back. Here he reveals how to enjoy some of Europe's top railway routes, from Cornwall's Night Riviera to the Nightjet express to Venice.

BBC viewers are hooked on an 'absolutely brilliant' new murder mystery series, which has been dubbed the 'next Jonathan Creek'. The new show, which stars David Mitchell , 50, hit BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Wednesday and fans are already obsessed.

David Mitchell has revealed the hidden references to Agatha Christie in his new BBC show Ludwig. The new murder mystery which stars David, 50, is set to hit BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Wednesday.  In the new series, David plays John 'Ludwig' Taylor, an introverted and reclusive puzzle setter.

Hair? Check. Teeth? Check. Bus pass? Check! With the essentials intact, a milestone birthday should be a cause for celebration, says Cosmo Landesman. There's just one problem: this one is scarily big

From the coast of Devon to the windswept West Coast of Scotland via Cumbria and Northumberland, read on for boozers in unique coastal locations - and with quirky histories - you'll want to raise a glass to.

Like all great actors, Sir Ian McKellen has been on the receiving end of some waspish theatre reviews down the years, but as a poacher-turns-gamekeeper exercise and for quite a few reasons besides, The Critic is a joy. McKellen plays Jimmy Erskine, formidably influential drama critic for The Daily Chronicle.  The period is the 1930s, when folk wear dinner dress to go to the West End theatre, although there is another sartorial code in the East End, where Sir Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts are on the prowl.

Bill Cotton, the head of the BBC 's light entertainment department, was adamant. The department store sitcom Are You Being Served?, an instant hit with viewers, could not be screened without one major change.

With its sunny climate, beautiful beaches, world-class food and welcoming communities, it's no wonder Spain remains one of the most popular countries for Britons to move to. General costs are much cheaper in Spain, too. On average, rent is 40 per cent lower than in the UK, according to numbeo.com, while the cost of living is 33 per cent cheaper. But where to move to in Spain? We've spoken to property experts and estate agents to reveal the best towns, villages and cities for Brits, based on house prices, transport, amenities, access to the countryside, schools and strength of communities.

By her own account, Agatha Christie's key inspirations for Poirot were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Joseph Rouletabille, an amateur French sleuth from the pen of Gaston Leroux, better known as the author of The Phantom Of The Opera. It was Leroux's The Mystery Of The Yellow Room that instigated a conversation between Agatha and her sister Madge about writing a detective novel. Agatha further reflected that contemporary events persuaded her to make her detective Belgian. In An Autobiography, she wrote that during World War I , 'We had quite a colony of Belgian refugees living in the parish of Tor. Why not make my detective a Belgian?' Agatha was honest about the influence of Sherlock Holmes. She knew she was 'writing in the Sherlock Holmes tradition - eccentric detective [Poirot], stooge assistant [Captain Hastings], with a Lestrade-type Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Japp.'

Gardening, they say, is good for stress. Frazzled souls can be soothed by spending time in the veggie patch or flower beds. Much as one wishes this attractive theory were true, it must have been devised by some lucky sap who never encountered bindweed.

Ted Thornhill checked in to The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel to find out why the rich and famous love it. The 35-storey, 192-room Upper East Side hotel is located one block from Central Park. Watch Ted's video of his stay - it offers a sneak peek tour of his stunning Carlyle Suite quarters.

Ailbhe MacMahon stays at InterContinental Khao Yai Resort in Thailand, which recreates the 'golden age' of rail travel in Thailand, a period beginning in the late 1800s. She sleeps in an upcycled carriage designed to represent an imagined journey to Cambodia. Read on for a sneak peek into how a glamorous era of rail travel has been cleverly brought back to life...

Pub staff have been left stumped after discovering framed photos of a mystery man left dotted around the venue. Workers at Boom Battle Bar in Bath were left scratching their heads when they found a photograph of an unknown man randomly stashed at their pub. They became even more confused when they on second printout leading them to open up an 'investigation'.  Taking matters into her own hands, deputy manager, Jenna Sharp (pictured), 21, filmed a video asking: 'If you're not the person that's been leaving picture frames of random men in our venue, keep scrolling'.

Rather than simply being an amusing coincidence, researchers from the University of Utah argue that people's names may be the reason that they end up in certain careers. In a new study, they found that people are drawn to places and professions which share the first letter of their name in an effect known as 'nominative determinism'. According to the team, this could explain why Shakira (top centre) became a singer, Anya Taylor-Joy (bottom right) rose to fame as an actress, David Lynch (left) became a director, Dianne Buswell (bottom centre) a dancer, and Agatha Christie (top right) an author.

England has a reputation for eccentricity - and as reviewer Sarah Bridge discovered, its hotels, from Devon to Birmingham via London, proudly keep up this tradition. Here, she's picked out some of her favourite quirky stays. Read on for the full list and decide which of the hotels you'd most like to stay in.

The Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport captured local attention thanks to its picturesque Pacific Ocean views and literary theme - which extended to a total ban on TVs and Wi-Fi.

In 2021, G T Karber was living in Los Angeles, working as a screenwriter and maths tutor and, on this occasion, procrastinating. He was in a café and doodled an idea for a logic puzzle on the back of a napkin. This, I think, gives you a good sense of Karber's brainpower - I don't know many people who, in moments of procrastination, idly draw up logic puzzles. The puzzle was a murder mystery, a bit like Cluedo. The player was given a list of suspects, weapons and locations. Then, with the help of clues and a Sudoku-like grid, they had to deduce, by a process of elimination, who had committed the fictional murder, with what weapon, and where.

Arkansas-raised writer Greg Karber, whose pen name is G.T. Karber, is the brains behind hit Murdle. His book of 100 detective puzzles, which involves players using a Sudoku-like grid to try and work out whodunnit, where and with what weapon scooped the top prize at The British Book Awards this week. The Hollywood-based writer and computer programmer has seen the idea he scribbled down in a cafe in 2022 become this year's runaway literary hit. (Pictured from left: Greg Karber, with copies of his Murdle book. Inset: With his partner Dani)

He was the avuncular man in sensible specs who, at his peak, was a Scottish household name - and the true pioneer of the gritty, murderous genre that is 'tartan noir'. Bill Knox, a journalist from the south side of Glasgow, covered untold crimes, fronted for almost a decade STV's Crime Desk slot appealing for help from the public - always signing off the programme with the promise that any calls to the police 'can be in confidence' - and had abundant contacts in the constabulary. But he was also, for decades, the author of many police procedurals and thrillers, of which the best remembered series follows the Glasgow homicides that entangled the excitable Chief Inspector Thane and his calmer deputy, Moss. Knox used so many pseudonyms for other adventures it is hard to tally them all - Michael Kirk, Noel Webster, Robert MacLeod - but he is now thought to have written 65 books between 1957 and his death, a quarter-century ago, on March 24, 1999.