A Guide to Similar Authors for Agatha Christie Fans

I am a murder mystery and crime fiction addict. I can't help myself. I'm drawn into the intrigue, the complicated sequence of events, the motive, method and opportunity, the psychology of the crime, victims, suspects and criminal. My favorite author was always Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his Victorian Sherlock Holmes. I liked Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt as a child. I refused to read Agatha Christie because I had read that she was outsold only by Shakespeare and the Bible. How that was a reason for me to avoid Agatha Christie, I haven't a clue.

Happily I read an Agatha Christie, finally. All the best of what I loved about Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt were exalted to genius by Dame Agatha and everything I disliked, primarily the slushy romance, was left out of Agatha Christie's work. Well, that was about 16 years ago, and I have read and reread all the Agatha Christies many times. I realize that what I love is British historical fiction and vintage crime. Over the years, I've delved into other British authors of the Golden Age of murder mystery (1920's- 1940s) If you like Agatha Christie and need some other authors to explore whose work is written in the same era and style, here is a list of ten authors and my favorites of their work for you to sample.

Ngaio Marsh (also a CBE or Dame). Marsh's detective is Roderick Alleyn of the CID and his Hastings is Detective Inspector Fox. The Alleyn mysteries are slightly newer than the Christies, but they were contemporaries. Marsh's settings are somewhat more narrow; many of which relate to the theater. My favorites are: Clutch of Constables, Light Thickens, Killer Dolphin, When in Rome and Singing in the Shrouds.

Dorothy Sayers (I presume she is an OBE, but I'm not sure) Her detective is the scathingly brilliant Lord Peter Whimsey, who poses as a dandified dilettante. On the top layer, Peter Death Bredon Whimsey seems shallow and impudent. But the deeper layers reveal an almost tortured genius who is still haunted by his suffering in WWI. His valet is Lord Peter's Hastings. I like the full length Whimseys, namely The Nine Taylors, but I prefer the short stories: The Man with the Copper Fingers, The Queen's Square, and others in the Collected Stories of Lord Peter Whimsey.

Mary Roberts Rinehart is not British, but her mysteries are as lethal and eerie as the best of Agatha Christie. In fact Wikipedia calls her the American Agatha Christie. Her Nurse Hilda Adams are some of my favorites: The Haunted Lady and The Bat

Ellis Peters (Dame) is best known for her medieval monk herbalist the redoubtable Brother Cadfael who is one of my favorite characters. But Peters also writes crime fiction in a more modern era with her phlegmatic George Felse, CID. My favorites Felse's mysteries are City of Gold and Shadows, Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair, Rainbow's End and Fallen into the Pit.

Christianna Brand 'sNurse Mathilda gets into some really creepy situations in her career of visiting/ live-in nurse. Her stories can be downright hair-raising murder mystery.

Elizabeth Peters is the nom-de-plume of Barbara Mertz. She has several hard-headed heroines that I love, but my favorite is Jacqueline Kirby in The Murders of Richard III and The Seventh Sinner. Also an American, we can forgive her because of her fabulous literary talent.

GK Chesterton: Chesterton is a brilliant Oxford scholar and convert to Catholicism. He has also given the world the plebeian and bumbling Fr. Brown. The mysteries of Fr. Brown are earthy, witty and aesthetic. The mysteries are fully as Gothic as one could wish.

Baroness Emmushka Orczy is of course best known for The Scarlet Pimpernel, but I am more partial to her series Lady Molly of Scotland Yard ( I have a daughter Molly, but that's not the main reason!)

Margery Allingham is best known for her stories about the enigmatic Albert Campion. I haven't read these with as much passion as the preceding authors, but Allingham's work belongs in the Golden Era, and she is listed as one of the four Grande Dames of vintage murder.