Taken At The Flood (BBC Radio Collection)

In 1940s London, Hercule Poirot is cornered by the club bore and learns of a mysterious death - one which sets him off on one of his most intriguing cases. When Gordon Cloade is killed in a London air raid his vast fortune passes to his young wife Rosaleen. Cloade's relatives are desperate to get their hands on his money, and Rosaleen begins to fear for her life. The prospects for the Cloade relatives improve when they discover that Rosaleen had a previous husband who had perished mysteriously in Africa. Then a mysterious stranger appears in the village, saying that he has something to communicate to her, but the following morning he is found dead. Was the murdered man in fact Rosalind's first husband? Who murdered him - and why?

2 CDs. 2 hrs 10 mins.

Agatha Christie, the acknowledged ‘Queen of Crime' (The Observer) was born in Torquay in 1890. During the First World War she worked as a hospital dispenser, and it was here that she gleaned the working knowledge of various poisons that was to prove so useful in her detective stories.

Her first novel was The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which introduced Hercule Poirot to the world. This was published in 1920 (although in fact she had written it during the war) and was followed over the next six years by four more detective novels and a short story collection. However, it was not until the publication of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd that Agatha Christie’s reputation was firmly established. This novel, with its complex plot and genuinely shocking conclusion, attracted considerable public attention and has since been acknowledged by many experts as a masterpiece. In 1930 the sharp-witted spinster sleuth Miss Marple made her first appearance in The Murder at the Vicarage. In all, Agatha Christie published over 80 novels and short story collections.

The brilliance of Christie’s plots, and her enduring appeal, have led to several dramatisations of her work on radio, television and film. In 1930 she was one of a number of crime writers asked to contribute a chapter to a mystery, Behind the Screen, that was broadcast on BBC radio on 21st June that year. More recently, June Whitfield portrayed Miss Marple on BBC Radio 4, whilst John Moffat starred as Hercule Poirot. On screen, Peter Ustinov, David Suchet, Margaret Rutherford, Joan Hickson, Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie have all memorably played Agatha Christie’s famous sleuths.

As her play The Mousetrap (the longest-running play in the history of theatre) testifies, Agatha Christie’s detective stories are likely to appeal for a long time to come.

Agatha Christie was awarded a CBE in 1956 and was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1971. She died in 1976.