I learned everything I know about plot from Dame Agatha (Christie).
When I set out to write crime fiction, I didn't think to myself, 'I'm going to model myself on Agatha Christie' or 'I am going to be a crime writer in the Christie tradition'.
I've never been a great fan of crime fiction. I read Agatha Christie in my youth, but that's all.
I've always been an entertainer all my life; I come from a family of entertainers. I always made, very pretentiously, a comparison with Agatha Christie. Her inspiration was crime, and I'm sure she must have taken courses or read about crime, because it was the basis of her stories. But ultimately, it was her own fantasy.
Agatha Christie holds special personal memories for me because my mum, a television producer called Pat Sandys, had been the first person to persaude the Agatha Christie estate to put one of her stories on T.V.
Agatha Christie holds special personal memories for me because my mum, a television producer called Pat Sandys, had been the first person to persaude the Agatha Christie estate to put one of her stories on TV.
Only Agatha Christie can write like Agatha Christie.
I absolutely adore classic crime and read a huge amount as a teen - Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Sherlock Holmes, Josephine Tey, and many more.
The thing with 'The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo' is that is it's like an Agatha Christie plot, and an investigating journalist is also a classic character.
Nobody has ever written as many enjoyable, fun-to-read crime novels as Agatha Christie. It's all about the storytelling and the pleasure of the reader. She doesn't want to be deep or highbrow.
[Agatha Christie] is fond of quoting the witty wife who once said, 'an archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have; the older she gets, the more interested he is in her.
Christie's husband, Max Mallowan, was an archaeologist.
I absolutely adore Agatha Christie; so much so that when I received a kitten for my Christmas present, I called her Agatha, and I already have a cat called Hercule!
For many years, I read mystery novels for relaxation. But my tastes were too narrow - and, having read all of Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr, I discovered that the implausibility and the thinness of the people distracted me unduly from the plot.
It's heretical, I know, but I've never really been able to get on with Agatha Christie. She is, of course, a giant of the genre, but I never feel that she cared a great deal about the characters. Consequently, neither do I.
I've always been a secret locked-room fanatic. I read my first one when I was about ten or 11, Agatha Christie's 'Murder on the Orient Express,' with David Niven and Peter Ustinov on the cover.
Agatha Christie has given more pleasure in bed than any other woman.