Lucy Worsley Photo: PBSInspiring one of the largest police pursuits of her time, a certain celebrated detective novelist created a lingering real-life mystery by disappearing for 11 days in 1926.
But she has seldom gone missing since—not from print, movies, the trans-Atlantic consciousness or public television, where another popular PBS import autopsies the writer in “ Agatha Christie : Lucy Worsley on the Mystery Queen.”Agatha Christie: Lucy Worsley on the Mystery Queen Begins Sunday, 8 p.m., PBSMs. Worsley’s investigations have largely concerned Tudors, Georgians, Victorians and U.K. Christmas traditions, but in this three-part and nearly three-hour deep dive, she explores not just the biography of the world’s best-selling novelist but what made her the writer and woman she was.
The 1926 vanishing act isn’t even mentioned until episode 2.
First we see the way the author’s eccentric family, its evaporating fortune, her traumatizing experiences as a World War I nursing volunteer and her work in the hospital dispensary (where she learned about poisons) influenced the 70-odd novels (as well as plays and short stories) that continue to disturb and fascinate readers across the globe.
Ms. Worsley’s idea—a good one—is to track Christie’s life alongside her crime-ridden imagination and see where and whether the two intersect.
Persons:
Lucy Worsley, —, Agatha Christie, ” Agatha Christie
Organizations:
PBS