Hello and welcome to The Swinging Christie.

It's the podcast of our Agatha Christie in the Swinging 60s.

My name's Mark Aldridge.

I'm an Agatha Christie historian writer in my latest book.

Agatha Christie's Marple, Expert on Wickedness, is out now.

Yes, and I'm Greg Robert Brown.

I'm a writer and Agatha fan.

I'm an international man of mystery jet setter.

Because today, Mark, we are.

What are we doing?

Well, we are literally looking at planes at the moment, but not in a plain spottery way, but because we're waiting for our gate to be called because we're we're on a trip.

We're heading to New York.

City baby we're.

Heading to New York City, this came out of the fact that for years I've known that there are some archives in America that I wanted to consult, but they were all quite small or they hadn't really been looked at.

And so it's a bit of a gamble to go all that way and find that these are empty folders.

And so I thought we still.

Might.

Yeah, we.

Still might.

Yeah, I was every chance so gracious.

And what I for?

An episode that may end in supreme disappointment.

Because I thought that what we would do was I would say, right, there's a way to go to three of these different archives.

So you're sort of spreading the the possibilities that you might find something.

But also we wanted to do an American episode.

We did.

So I was like, alright, let's find a way that we can do all of this together so we only have to fly 1 S to America.

So this is this is what we're doing.

Special, USA special miniseries, really, because we've got so Part 1 is this episode.

Yes, we're going to be recording from New York and visiting to Markos there.

Then Part 2, we're off to Washington, DC.

Yes.

And we're even doing an extra special episode about an American author after that whilst we're on our trip as well.

But more details to follow.

So yeah, super.

Excited, I know, and I'm actually really chilled about it because we're all going to places where I've been before and so it's just like I'm not worried about sometimes you go on holiday and you're like, how do I get to places?

And now I'm just like, oh, I can actually go and I can enjoy the archive, enjoy the recording, enjoy the the bits that we're doing without the practicalities being too much of.

A concern and I've newly made it my personality to just never not be in airports so well.

Yes, yes, because you've just come back from Japan, so you're literally going, you know, going east to US and then going to West.

I don't know what time it is, listener, I don't know what day it is.

I look haggard, but I'm very excited nonetheless.

And doing yes you confess to a lot of jet lag from I wonder if this will be like Superman will turn back time so.

We'll go somewhere preference the other day to someone, even though I've never seen that film.

But just before we do head off to our gates to be announced, I do want to check that you've got your important documents.

So you've got your passport?

Yep.

Have you got your boarding pass?

I have.

Do you have your cloak?

Because you got it and that's the only way to get that.

They won't even look at you twice unfortunately.

Put on your passenger to Frankfurt clothes.

Only they will just.

Wave you through.

You could be travelling on your sisters passport and they're not gonna know.

This is this is some cruel Mickey taking from you.

I I refuse to frankfoligise for my devotion to that title.

No, although I do think that cloak was listed under prohibited items when we went to security just now.

That's it.

That's why Because they know.

They know the scam.

Now, yeah, this is it.

We've got the we've got the spirit of Agatha guiding us all the way to America.

Shall we go?

Let's go so.

Here we are.

We made it.

We have made it New York City, and here are in New York City, in Manhattan, specifically in Central Park.

We are we in fact we we are we are next to Bow Bridge and we maybe just witnessed a.

Proposal.

I think so.

There was a lot of applause.

We don't think it was for.

Us and I think someone shouted.

She said yes.

Oh, really?

I think that's what I heard.

I've got a suspicion if we sit here long enough, there will be another one.

I feel like there's just a little queue somewhere that people just wait a respectful half hour.

Yeah.

And then they'll do their.

Proposal.

It's a beautiful.

Spot, I mean, I've never been to, I should say I've never been to New York before.

You have yes.

And it's beautiful and this is a particularly nice spot and a particularly nice day.

It's sort of 23 and sunny.

And so why are we in America?

Why are we specifically in New York, Mark?

Well, so partly it's because of the archive stuff I said before we took off, but America is important to Agatha Christie.

Big part of her audience was over here.

And as Jacqueline Lurker, who comes to the Agatha Christie festival every year and is American, always reminds us, quite rightly, Agatha was half American.

Yeah, you forget that because she's just seemed so quintessentially British.

Yeah.

So I like to feel we're paying tribute to half of her.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's definitely, definitely not just an excuse for a jolly, is what you're telling.

It's definitely, definitely.

Not I've got we've got a really full.

Itinerary can I remind?

You we genuinely have an itinerary where we have got everyday plan.

It's true.

It's.

All we're doing.

It's true.

And unusually for us, we aren't currently sat here with beers.

No, no.

Yeah.

So definitely there are American references peppered throughout her from the very beginning.

We will obviously not go go through and list them all because that would be madness.

And obviously we have our unique kind of swinging perspective where we're looking specifically, if you're fairly new to us, between the years sort of 1959 and 1971 ish.

But it's true to say that America kind of stands tall in the Christie Canon from the very beginning.

Yeah.

I mean, America publishes the mysterious ferret styles, her debut before the UK.

Does a year before?

Absolutely.

1920.

Yes, yes.

And Book 2, so the Secret Adversary, right from the off, you get that, that sequence with the Lusitania and Jane Finn has left New York where we are right now.

Yeah, on board the Lusitania.

So right at the beginning of of Christie's kind of.

And actually, it's funny, I was, I was like rereading The Secret Adversary isn't me.

And you forget that she says that that Toppens has a sort of transatlantic accent.

Yeah, yeah.

It's funny, isn't it?

Yeah.

Something about her speaking in a modern way isn't there.

That's not the way that's like, that's what a modern person.

Yeah, and certainly the way that Alex Jennings performs his reading of that book gives toppens that twang to the point where I was like, is that wrong?

That feel that feels like a mistake.

But but I went back to the text and he's he's absolutely right.

Yes.

So, but that's, that's partly why we're here, I guess, is to kind of restate Christie's relationship with with American culture.

Yeah, because when we're thinking about America for Agatha Christie in the 1960s, there's a big thing right at the beginning of the decade that Harold Ober, her American agent, who had been her agent for a very long time, dies in 1959.

And Dorothy Olding then takes over, who had done a fair bit for Agatha Christie at this point because Harold Ober and associates.

So she was one of the associates.

So Harold over had like health problems earlier in the 50s.

So, OK, Dorothy Olding is didn't then, but there's a really lovely tribute to him that I actually put on Twitter.

I'm not on Twitter anymore, but I didn't delete it.

And I, I think might make it into another project I'm doing where there was a whole tribute to Harold Ober in a magazine in 1960 or 61 that was all about sort of people that had died in the last year or two.

Right.

Which just shows how important he was.

And he sounded like a really lovely man.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

So that's a big, you know, although they weren't close, but they did know each other a little.

In terms of the world of Agatha Christie, that's a big old thing to lose, an agent of decades to suddenly have someone else deal with that day to.

Day stuff.

Well, yeah, and there was.

There's a hell of a lot of correspondence between the two of them.

There's a hell of a lot of correspondence between Christie and Dorothy Elding as well, Yes.

So because she then represents Christie in America until Christie's death.

Yes, yes, that's absolutely right.

Yeah.

So I think it's worth thinking about when we get to the 60s then, if America's been ever present.

But is there a difference when by the time we get to the 60s, Agatha Christie knows that's a huge market for her?

I mean, she's known it for a while, but particularly in the 60s, it's like cemented that American money is important to her income and Agatha Christie limited income.

So what sort of references do you think we can find in this this era then?

Yeah.

So we had a bit of a project going through, didn't we?

I think one of the main ways in which American Americans are referred to in these titles is one of the main things they represent, I suppose, is the other or the exotic.

So the idea that there's something exciting about Americana.

So it comes up a couple of times, the idea that pretending to be American could be a disguise within her mystery plots.

So the mysterious woman who brings Jennifer her new racket in Cat Among the Pigeons.

Rat among the Pigeons It's a Poirot novel about the murder of a games mistress at a girls school from 1959.

In the hopes of essentially exchanging that new racket for the one that's full of jewels and and sort of central to the the mystery plot there.

She.

We're told it speaks with a slight American accent.

It's not apparent whether she is American or if that's no her putting it on.

But the idea that someone who's a bit mysterious, yeah, would be presented to us through that sort of lens of Americanism is interesting.

And.

And later Jennifer says, you see, I didn't really look at her much.

She was an American and a stranger.

So you get that idea then.

And then she told me about the racket.

And similarly in the.

Clock yes so this was I'd forgotten about this until I was doing the search that.

So when Miss Martindale buys the clocks of the title, which, you know, around the crime scene, she buys from Portobello Market and and they find that out pretty quickly that someone had bought them there.

And the person who sold it could only really describe the person as having an American accent.

And two things about that.

Firstly, they say, quite rightly, there's a lot of Americans here.

So sort of blending into the background.

Tourists.

Tourists.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

But also you get the sense that that is immediately suspicious to the investigators because you're like, well, that's probably someone pretending to be an American.

And they don't necessarily think, oh, that means we're looking for an American.

They mean, oh, this is somebody who's trying to hide their identity.

And right at the end, there's like a passing mention that the the the person who sold the books looks at a photo Miss Martin down goes, Oh yes, so that's that's nicely easily.

Solved.

Yes, Yeah, well, I'm following on from that.

So tourism, that's the other thing that Oh yeah, references in these books commonly linked to is, is, is tourist and tourism.

And specifically, of course, at Bertram's hotel.

At Bertram's Hotel is a Miss Marple novel set in a London hotel, which is not quite what it seems from 1965.

So we're told that the setup of that hotel is specifically alluring to American tourists because it represents a sort of England that never was that appeals to that cultures.

And, and this is a sweeping statement, of course, but that culture is common kind of Anglophile nature.

Yes, so interesting, like almost it seemed exotic in a way that US feels quite mundane, the idea of sort of what afternoon tears and stuff.

Yeah.

It's kind of presenting a certainly in England that doesn't exist anymore, but also one, funnily enough, kind of what we say about Christie time, kind of an England that never really existed.

But it's, it's the, it's the cultural perception.

Yeah.

But yeah, we're told in a Bertram's hotel that you have people from Boston and Washington and that they're very quiet, nice people.

We'll go on to this in in Part 2 when we travelled to Washington, DC.

But it's not readily apparent which Washington Christie means when she refers to Washington in several of her 60s books.

We are aware of that that that there is a difference between Washington and Washington, DC.

But we.

Had that panic by the way.

First time I went to Washington DC I had a momentary panic ago.

Have I booked a flight?

Don't do this now.

No, the trains in four days.

Oh, my God.

I think it's a slightly longer journey to Washington state than it's to Washington, DC Well, it's like basically Canada on the West.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well it would never be as bad as what we were talking about earlier.

Long thing where Birmingham City Council in England produced a pamphlet with Birmingham, AL pictures all over it, which which they'll never live down.

So yes, in Bertram's, so we're told, there was a double bar with two bar attendants, an American barman to make the Americans feel at home and to provide them with bourbon rye.

Rye is going to crop up again in a minute and every kind of cocktail.

And an English one to deal with the Sherry's and the Pyms.

So it's quite interesting how segregated the kind of American aspects of the culture in Bertrams and the English aspects are.

But it's it does, as we find by, as we know by the end of the book, there's something very directed and conscious about the hotel's appeal to that kind of market.

Yeah.

So the manager, Humphreys says at one point it's a question of atmosphere.

Strangers coming to this country, brackets, Americans in particular, because they are the ones who have the money.

Close brackets, which is another.

Country another thing I'll come back to which?

Yeah, which crops up a lot in Christie.

Doesn't it have their own rather queer ideas of what England is like?

I'm not talking, you understand, of the rich business tycoons who are always crossing the Atlantic.

They usually go to the Savoy or the Dorchester.

They want all the things that make them feel at home.

But there are a lot of people who come abroad at rare intervals and who expect this country to be, well, I won't go back as far as Dickens, but they've read Cranford and Henry James and they just don't want to find this country just the same as their own.

So they go back home afterwards and say there's a wonderful place in London.

Bertram's Hotel, it's called.

It's just like stepping back 100 years.

It's just is old England.

Yeah, I said.

It's there's quite a bit of irony that we've, we've seen that in Central Park, like the most sort of touristy.

Absolutely.

We were doing the absolute, you know.

It's not.

And and some of the looks we're getting as people walk past is, is hammering that home.

Yeah, it hasn't escaped.

I noticed that.

It's the equivalent of of Kemper doing an episode from Leicester Square.

Or yeah.

Or outside Big Ben, Yeah, but it's.

Nice.

I love there's there's references in Bertrams as well to food, like food is real shown as as a difference.

There's stuff about the afternoon teas we've already said.

And also apparently Lady Selena says that Bertrams is the only place in London you can still get muffins, real muffins.

Do you know when I went to America last year, they had something called muffins on the breakfast menu.

Not real muffins at all.

Kind of a tea cake was raisins in them.

I mean, why I call them muffins?

So I don't even know what she thinks muffins are and what I think muffins are.

I don't think a muffin.

I mean a tea cake sounds like what she's describing as American muffin.

I wouldn't call that American.

Muffin.

Hilarious.

Muffin.

Didn't we have this exact conversation?

Breakfast this morning because we bought those sort of muffins that you get in sort of plastic that I think will outlive us all.

So so where we say.

For me, it's like it's a bread, like flat roll that you toast.

It's like a tea cake, but without the raisins.

Yeah, but.

Muffin here is more like.

Yeah, Muffin.

Yeah.

I wonder what Lady Salim thinks the muffin is like.

You can get those muffins anywhere.

But isn't that interesting that to so to her Bertram's is so English that it even has muffins that even the regular English outside of Bertram's hotel.

Yeah.

That is hilarious because that is exactly we had that exact conversation at breakfast that hopefully we spoke to Kemper from All about the the Festival last year in Devon about the differences between the sort of cooked breakfast, like the sort of greasy fry up in England and how you wouldn't really get that here.

Although I did have tater tots here, yes, which is pretty, pretty, pretty full English to me.

I did.

I went back for a second, a second helping a tater tops.

But yes, Speaking of the American style breakfast, it's clearly something that Agatha is preoccupied by because she refers to it also in Endless Night.

So Michael talks of Ellie having that American habit of drinking coffee and a glass of orange juice and having nothing much else for breakfast.

We're also told that Americans need at least 10°F more in terms of room temperature, which?

Is again another conversation we've just had because you like Grey, who doesn't understand Fahrenheit.

It's not that I don't understand Fahrenheit, Mark, what happened was I'm so listener, you won't will not understand how jet lagged I am.

I've been in 17 time zones in the last three weeks and and you were trying to talk to me about Fahrenheit last night and I just wanted to go to sleep.

You just said can you turn it, turn it up the temperature, and I said it's set at 69.

I don't know what that means.

I don't know what paradise is.

Usually like, Oh my God, I don't, I don't know.

There's also this thing that I noticed.

There's just this generous thing about Americans do things differently.

And I think we've spoken a bit about, like, Marina and Mirror cracked enough to get a sense of that.

But The Mirror Cracks From Side to Side is a Miss Marble novel about a poisoning at a film star's house from 1962.

Marina who?

Who?

I said before, I think on the pod.

I've never been quite sure whether she's supposed to be American or British, but most places do call her American.

But I think.

That most adaptations cast her American is that.

Well, Elizabeth Taylor, you know, and for me, she's like Elizabeth Taylor where someone who might have been born in Britain, gone to Hollywood as a young, made it because otherwise it's like, how does she have all these links back to when she comes back to England?

It just feels weird to me a bit but.

But also, but Jason Rudd.

Is American definitely is and Marina effectively is because she's she's Hollywood eyes whatever happens true she's she's.

Part of the plot what she.

Represents is Hollywood, yeah, yeah, intrinsically.

But that American thing of they do things differently, like, oh, they different.

They'll dispense Carmo much more than they might do in the UK.

And some of the stuff about the adoption even I think fails like that whole story, like like it, it wouldn't be handled that way in Britain, let's put it that way.

It's a way that she was able to adopt quite freely and then sort of give them away effectively.

So I think there's quite a lot in that that is just about America.

It's not the same as Britain.

Yeah, And that can be a, that can be a point of comedy.

And historically that's always been a point of comedy that kind of, oh, we say pants, you say trousers, the sort of difference between cultures.

And Christie does sort of engage in that kind of thing.

But also, yeah, in terms of the contrast which, which Merit Cracked is built on, right.

There's contrast between the old and new worlds.

We've said it many times.

And is is integral to that story.

Well, yeah, and if we're going to push it, then the the victim is killed within American daiquiri, not just a daiquiri.

It's specifically called an American daiquiri.

Yeah, So just to be clear, we're not, we're not blaming America for for Heather Badcock's death.

I just want to because people are in, in fact, in ear shot, locals are in ear shot.

I I just want to make that absolutely clear.

Oh, there, there's this funny bit talking of America about where there is a passing mention of American gangsters.

I think that because there are Americans in the vicinity, Miss Knight, who Miss Marple famously hates and is her helper and won't leave her alone, says that with all these American gangsters and things like that, well, I suppose it's nothing to be surprised about which.

So someone, Miss Knight in particular I guess, is either going to the movies or reading a lot of American crime fiction.

I'm I'm fairly sure we get similar references in by the Picking of my Thumbs about American gangsters as well, American crime.

But yeah, that leads us neatly on to one of the main types of references we get to American American culture in specifically in the swinging bugs.

Is to American detective fiction, so in the Pale Horse.

The Pale Horse is a standalone novel that explores mysterious goings on and unexplained deaths at a countryside inn from 1961.

Yes.

So in The Pale Horse, Mark Easterbrook, when he meets Ariadne, says, oh, you don't smoke.

And Missaurus.

No, I don't drink either.

I wish I did.

Like those American detectives that always have pints of rye conveniently in their collar drawers.

I did look up what collar draw is.

Yeah.

Thank you.

It's.

Actually, so officially it starts as being literally a draw within your wardrobe where you would put your shirt collars, which were no detachable.

But it seems to become a sort of name for when you have a little set of drawers within something else.

So like if you opened your study desk, then you might have a little set of drawers in it or underneath where it is, I see drawers within something else.

So anyway, so it seems to solve all their problems.

That's the crux of it, isn't it?

That she?

I think what Christie's gently ribbing is the fact that in hardboard detective fiction, whereas in a Christie you often have that kind of deductive moment when, I don't know, Hastings says something and it jogs prior his memory or Marple hears something and then it inspires her to set a trap.

And in pulp American detective fiction, the, the point often is that they take a swig and that inspires them to, you know, sort of emboldens them to, to launch into act three or the, or the climax or to, to reprimand the, the murderer or whatever it may be.

And of course, those pulpy American detective fiction references, and specifically the right image, the, the main point at which we get that is in the clocks.

We've talked about this before, but Poirot's knowledge of detective fiction, and in part American detective fiction, is crucial to the solving of that mystery.

It's actually the point at which a crucial clue is buried.

Isn't it, about Gary Gregson?

And there's a point, Yeah.

So we get the right image again.

Actually, we get it, because Colin Lamb says he's sort of joking.

And he says what?

That my life has been full of beautiful spies of every nationality, all of them with vital statistics that would make an American Private Eye forget all about the shot of rye in his collar draw.

I'm immune to all female and Lermans.

He's it's going down from a pint to a shot now.

So yeah, yeah, a pint of rye is quite a lot.

I think someone must have said, I know you don't drink Agatha, let's try and get this.

Yes.

A little bit more believable, yeah.

But specifically in Paris, big speech to Colin about this magnum opus that he's writing on crime fiction.

So he says.

Now here is Gary Gregson, A prodigious writer of thrillers.

He is not quite, as you would say, my cup of tea.

He is, in fact, not a cup of tea at all.

He is more like one of those American cocktails of the more obscure kind whose ingredients are highly suspect.

And of course, Gary Gregson ends up crucial to the the solving of it all.

And then when Poirot goes on elsewhere in his lecture about crime fiction, Yeah, Colin Lamb asks about the tough school, and Poirot says violence for violence's sake, which is exactly how I Christie described it in an interview, actually.

So no surprise there.

Since when has that been interesting?

But he does give American crime fiction, on the whole, a pretty high place.

And now she thinks it's more imaginative and ingenious.

Than a lot of English writing.

It's funny, isn't?

It because we have to read this passage.

Before, and it always strikes me how it starts off like he's going to deride it all.

But actually, like with Christie, it is a bit of a ribbing about the Ryan stuff and he objects to the violence.

But then he does say actually in terms of quality overall, you know, I've enjoyed studying.

It is essentially what he says.

And then he talks about Louisa O'Malley, who's not a real writer and she's fictitious, but both John Curran and Curtis Evans.

When I searched for this, I found Curtis Evans blog called Passing Tramp.

And he thinks, and apparently John Curran agrees, that it's Elizabeth Daly basically who I got a confess I haven't read any of.

But at Poirot, she is a model of fine scholarly writing.

And he talks about the atmosphere of New York that she writes brownstone mansions, exclusive apartments and soulful snobberies.

And underneath deep unsuspected seams of crime run their uncharted course.

And that's like, that's just basically what you could say in British society as well.

So it's it's interesting that he's saying here's another sort of embedded society where there are currents happening under the surface.

Yeah.

That he's obviously thinks, and I guess yes, Christie thinks works particularly well.

Although, yeah, I mean, it's funny.

I mean, we're literally looking at some brownstone mansions as we speak.

I mean, it's funny.

That is a very, that is a new architecture.

And I guess it's the same as saying the aesthetics of London crime writing is very, I don't know, lampposts and manicure parks and Edwardian townhouses.

Yeah, Yeah.

And then in the next.

Poirot novel, which is Third Girl, 3rd Girl is a Poirot novel set in swinging London about a young woman who thinks.

She may have committed a murder from 1966.

We're told that he has finished his magnum opus and it says he had dared to speak scathingly of Edgar Allan Poe.

He complained of of the lack of method or order in the romantic outpourings of Wilkie Collins had lauded to the skies 2 American authors who were practically unknown.

So yeah, again, we get this idea that he's not actually per SE against American crime fiction.

And then, I mean, as we're here, it would be rude not to give a specific shout out to New York.

NY is called out specifically in in several of the swinging titles.

Probably the most, one of the most interesting, I think, is that the Thallion poisoning case, which is so important to the Pale horse, did happen in New York, we're told by Mark Easterbrook.

That's where he discovered it.

Well, we've mentioned in an earlier podcast about we know that Agatha Christie and Max went to America in the 1960s.

So Max was invited on this lecture tour and Agatha Christie accompanied him.

So I think that's that's a really interesting idea as to what Agatha Christie might have wanted to discover about this country in the 1960s.

And I wonder how much it changed from when she'd gone there early on, back in 1922.

She was she, she was in New York briefly.

So, you know, the world changes a lot in those 44 years or so.

It's good to remember as well that even in her comparatively late years, she still had this wanderlust that she had in her early years.

She still, you know, that we, you read the, the itinerary out of the of the US trip in an earlier episode and it is incredible.

All the different places they went, not just, you know, New York and DC, but all over for a far more ambitious itinerary than we.

Yeah, Yeah.

And that's a woman in her 70s.

So Speaking of previous episodes, we did actually find a really interesting reference in one of the notebooks when we were recording our episode in the archives, if you recall.

And I remember at the time you flag here.

And I was talking about whether we should do it now or save it for America.

And we saved it especially for this moment.

So in this notebook she tells us that they visited a Carbon 14 laboratory with a Professor Davies when in Austin, TX in 1966.

She writes so complicated A process that one really can't understand how anyone even thought of it.

So Carbon 14, this is properly fascinating for me because, you know, I'm such a Cold War geek.

Carbon 14 is a, is a very slightly radioactive isotope and it is involved in nuclear weapons testing.

Actually, when you test a nuclear weapon, one of the things that was released into the atmosphere is carbon 14.

And I mean, again, we say it all the time, but isn't this Christie with her finger on the pulse?

She's there in the laboratory talking about this really quite complicated physics and, you know, does this.

Does insight like this help inspire books like Passenger to Frankfurt?

Passenger to Frankfurt is a stand alone espionage thriller about Sir Stafford Nye's hunt for answers from 1970.

I mean, Passenger to Frankfurt has numerous references to nuclear weapons.

A lot of page time is given over to to talk a bit and it's actually, you know, going I went back and and looked at it again and it is actually, you know, accurate the, the understanding.

And specifically, she does speak about the impact of the soil and the air specifically in France, But it's because the French ambassador is speaking at the time when nuclear weapons are used as in, you know, if you're going to meddle with this kind of technology, think about the the impact it's having on the environment around you.

And I think part of the reason in that book why Project Bemvo is why, how how they kind of arrive at Project Bemvo as a, as a potential kind of solution is whether you view it as a kind of ultimate dystopia or an ultimate utopia, it is nevertheless a turning away from some sort of nuclear or radioactive weapon.

And actually there's a quote, we cannot use nuclear weapons.

We cannot use explosives or gas or chemistry.

But your project, I think speaking to Professor Shoreham, but your project, Project Benvo we could use.

Because when Agatha and Max come back from the trip, I think in Agatha Christie's writings, you can really detect that suddenly it's at the top of her brain again.

America has cropped Halloween party, I guess.

Perhaps most obviously.

Yeah.

And we talked a length about the importance of Halloween to American culture and how her America trip no doubt put Halloween at the forefront of her mind for that, for that subsequent novel.

Yeah.

And, and actually, I can't remember where I read this.

It's a very, very good point.

I wish I could claim it as my own.

It may even be have been in all about Agatha.

Maybe I did not read it at all, but somebody pointed out that in the 1950's the party that we see Aaron Adney attending is quintessentially British, right in in Dead Man's Folly, and then by the 60's the party that she goes to is tinged with American.

That's the.

Difference.

There's there is A and explicit mentions now about the boys doing some harmless necking and they're saying that's an American phrase.

So obviously I, I guess I could have heard that on her job.

Was that all right?

That's what the youth are doing these days, necking.

Mrs Drake, isn't it what the Americans call necking?

You can imagine it being said.

It's so, it's so.

It's a brilliantly written dialogue and also crucial to the spine of Endless Night.

Endless Night is a stand alone psychological thriller in which young couple Michael and Ellie are menaced by unusual happenings from 1967 you.

Know so Michael, our protagonist is is British.

She's a bit of an English kind of wide boy and Ellie is a bit of a kind of American Princess, I guess, you know, American heiress kind of archetype and their culture clash between the two of them, or or rather the coming together of two cultures, because it's a romance spot for much of it, is central to that title.

It's central actually to we talk about this a lot, don't we?

What do you think the point of Endless Night is when you first read it for the first?

Yeah, you think it's like a a twisted romance or someone's trying to upset.

Exactly.

And and I think actually, that coming together in two cultures and are they ultimately going to see eye to eye because they're from such different worlds, is one of the obfuscations to distract you from the fact that we're going to end up somewhere altogether quite different and darker in that book because it leads you into thinking that the point is, yeah, this kind of culture clash love story, Michael says to Ellie at one point, What's your American phrase?

I come from the wrong side of the tracks, don't I?

Yeah.

Well, I've had a lovely time in Central Park.

Nice, so lovely.

Isn't that in the shade though?

I'm going to need a bit of sun.

Yes, I think so.

Too I've been seeing these nice fruit.

Cups.

Oh yeah, OK, let's grab some fruits.

But yes, we and then so tomorrow we're off to the Princeton arc.

We are, yes, well, that's so that's that's could could be a journey of discovery for us or it could be a load of old bills.

We'll we'll soon find out.

So we're back from the archive at Princeton.

Yes, we are.

Firestone library was it?

That's it.

Yes, Princeton University.

Yes, we rode the Dinky.

Oh my God.

So the local stopping service between the the main station and Princeton University is colloquially known as the Dinky.

I mean, I'm not actually for colloquial literally, the guard said.

And it just changed for the dinky.

Well, I think he was being colloquial, no?

Well, yeah, but I.

Mean but you.

Are now but we're not locals, so you.

Are now obsessed with the word dinky.

I love the word dinky.

You said it.

100 times.

Yeah.

And I'm still very jet lagged and it's starting to grow.

But no, a really productive and fascinating day.

Very productive because, like I said, didn't really know what we might find.

Yeah.

And actually what it is is what I'd hoped for.

Which is that?

So in Britain that at the University of Exeter there's the Hughes Massey archive, which is the British agents and this is the sort of mirror of that.

So this is the American side.

So it's quite interesting.

Quite a lot of stuff we saw today I'd seen before because I've seen on the other side I've seen.

So they keep the originals here and then send it a copy or whatever, you know, vice versa.

So there's a copy in one location and the original and the other.

So quite often you're seeing things from just one from the other perspective now.

So that's quite fun for me.

But also it was, I think you enjoyed going through.

Oh.

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah, some really interesting Nuggets and you, without giving too much away, you you are on the lookout for material for another top secret project.

That's true.

Which several of the tidbits that we uncovered today is in is in service of, but we're just going to draw out some exciting little Nuggets that are relevant to our swinging Christie's.

Just little, yeah.

I mean things we few little things that we put down on our pad and pencil.

Yeah, yeah.

So, so the records start from 1968.

Yes.

We don't know why.

No, it's just this thing.

Quite often you go to work and you go, why is this so high?

And they go.

I don't know.

It's just like.

It was just not deposited or it was lost or although, dear listener, if you know where the pre 1968 files are, if they, if they're in your basement, give me a call.

But I, I, I'm not aware of the pre 1968 on surviving.

Of course, there's no they don't have to store them anywhere.

They could just get rid of them if they.

Wanted to, yeah.

So, yeah.

So, so that means we've we've got a good few years where we're looking at papers that are directly relevant to our timeline.

Yes.

And then a fair few years after that, that we consulted that still kind of felt relevant.

So we're going to kick off in 1968.

So, so the first thing chronologically speaking, the first thing that I spotted that was super interesting to me.

So as you know by now, one of the things we love to do is situate Christie and Christie's works in the world around her in terms of what was going on in this completely fascinating and turbulent decade.

And and there's a letter we uncovered between Nora Hughes Massey, who was Christie's British agency, and her American agents, where the American agent in question says, thank you for your sympathetic feelings about our national tragedy.

Everyone feels almost numb.

And the date is the 12th of June 1968, which is just less than a week, six days after the assassination of Robert F Kennedy, which we know from the contextual research that we've done was a moment of of great kind of national mourning.

And for many people, kind of traumatising in terms of bringing back that feeling from JFK's assassination in 63, having just two months been through the same thing with Martin Luther King's assassination.

And it's just fascinating, I think, to see these people that were very close to Christie dealing with Christie's business interests, talking directly about something that's, you know, a historical event in the same letter as referring to the American edition of Endless Night.

And similarly, in 1968, there's a lovely letter, a reply from Max Mallowan, Christie's husband, who had been congratulated by Dorothy Olding, the American agent, as to.

Well, we, we sort of did a bit of digging and.

Yes, it's, it's one of those things that you go what, what could he be congratulated for?

And we had a few results because I thought possibly knighthood or possibly the publication of Nimrods and it's remains.

And then 68 is the year he was 90.

Yeah, yeah.

And the 66 isn't him when we checked.

After this, yeah.

That's his book, by the way, that he he'd spent many years working on and was published in a lovely lavish edition and he really slaved over.

Yeah.

And there were quite a few references to that in in papers that we saw today.

But yeah, so, so Max replied to Doroth.

It is so kind of you to have written to send your congratulations on this occasion, and we do very much appreciate your generous good wish, Agatha and I will never forget the many kindnesses you showed us during our visit to New York.

And to you we'll always remain plain Max and Agatha, IE, you don't need to refer to them.

That's so.

Sweet.

Isn't it?

Yeah.

And I think that's a theme actually that that really shone through was we spoke before about Harold's sad passing in in 1959 and Dorothy Alding taking the reins fully afterwards.

And I think one thing that came across looking this correspondence was just what a good relationship they had with Dorothy Alding.

Yeah, to the point where she she sends a telegram on every birthday.

It's a yes, which is really sweet.

And then finally in 1968, so that is the year that by the Pricking of My Thumbs is published by the Pricking of My Thumbs, sees Tommy and Tuppence return to investigate a mystery at a nursing home from 1968.

One of the things that was really interesting.

So I'd never heard before, I'd either not heard before or forgotten that that story for a long time was called The House by the Canal House on the Canal.

And, and funnily enough, there is a letter from Edmund Cork Hughes Massey, Chrissy's longtime British agent, who says I'm not sure whether she is right in changing the title to buy The Pricking of My Thumbs.

But she seems to feel quite strongly about it, which is final for us.

So it's nice to hear they they obviously very much respect her.

Her say at this point.

I mean, I do think by the Pricking of my Thumbs is a much superior title.

Yeah, I do too, Yes.

I'm very classic Christie with the obviously the the Shakespeare illusion, yeah, but enclosed to this letter, excitingly, there were quite a few line edits for by the pricking of my thumbs, weren't there?

And one, well, just two leaped out to me.

I shan't go through them all because a lot of them are, you know, typos and and little changes.

One was the specifying that the canal should be a disused canal.

Christy inserted the word disused a couple of instances there and I think that's interesting because.

It actually it does make sense that there is a feeling that the house is past its best.

Yes, off the beaten track.

Yes, definitely that that I think if you had people.

Going past going hello.

You know, I've been waving on that lovely sort of trip.

I I think you would.

Yes, find that bit difficult to marry up with the atmosphere.

Exactly of the rest of the book, absolutely.

And also, you know, it being this site of this horrific image of, of what's behind the fireplace and all the rest of it doesn't quite works.

So that's a good, a good edit, but an interesting one and a hilarious edit, I thought.

So there's a passage that talks in detail about the kind of history of that house.

And Christie actually inserted at a later date a reference to the addition of bathrooms, which we've talked about few.

Times.

Yeah, an obsession.

It's something she's really bothered by, isn't it?

Because.

Was in her own life back at Greenway during the war when it was being used by the US Navy they added all of those extra bathrooms and they wouldn't all don't lose and they wouldn't take them away but really it's just the fact that this in itself bathrooms just pop up all the time including in her autobiography she talks about it all the.

Time.

Yeah, yeah.

But also, it's like at this point, that was 2025 years ago.

Yeah, she's.

Still sort of.

Irked by it?

But maybe she was irked before that.

Maybe that just brought it to the surface.

Quite possibly.

Maybe it's always been a thing like.

Yeah, but this is one of the reasons why this archive Bible stuff is so interesting, because you get an insight into the mind, you know, sort of indirectly through through inferences and all sorts.

But yeah, finally, one last thing.

In 1968 was just something that caught my eye.

There's a letter from the Saturday Evening Post in New York who had rejected the offer to serialise by the pricking of my thumbs and I just but do disagree with but found quite amusing their verdict on the story, which is not for us, I'm afraid.

The plot is certainly ingenious, but all the people are so bloody decrepit.

And that's, that's only like that's, that's much lighter than some of the rejections passenger to Frankfurt gets.

But we might save that for for another project.

Quite, yes, Yeah.

So what did you find in 1969?

So in 1969, there were some additions for Halloween Party, yes.

So I thought this was just a nice little bit.

And again, I think this might be an extra bit, but just seeing it sort of put in amongst business papers, it's really stood out to me that at the end of Chapter 26, so towards the end of the story, there are additional few lines that Christie asked to be inserted.

Conversation between Miranda and Poirot.

Where it starts with it was not a dramatic denunciation.

Her voice was quiet, with something in it like wonder, but it's carried conviction.

You did not tell anyone.

Why not?

I thought I thought it might have been a sacrifice.

Who told you that?

Michael told me.

I didn't quite understand.

He said sacrifices were necessary.

And you loved Michael?

Asked Poirot gently.

Oh yes, said Miranda.

I loved him very much.

So I think firstly, that's a nice bit of characterisation, especially for Poirot really, but also it sort of explains things a bit more that actually you'd be like, well, why would she go along with this?

Because she loved him.

And and therefore makes you more sympathetic to Miranda.

I think.

Which is, is putting more of the blame on Michael, really, which which, yeah, like you say, it clarifies it a bit and.

There's another thing in 1969 that I noticed.

It's just a little thing, but really sums up the sort of constant battles that they were having, as in Christies agents, about people wanting as much as they could out of Agatha Christie.

And she had written this article, which we spoke about before for The Sunday Times Magazine called Poison at the Priory, which was an article not written by her, but was about the Charles Bravo murder case from the 19th century.

I'm not going to explain that again now, but Google it if you want to.

It's really interesting.

And she'd written this letter.

Agatha Christie had written this letter where she had said, oh, this is what I think might have happened.

And it turns out that that whole article, including the letter, was reprinted in Cosmopolitan in the US, one of the most frequent publishers of Agatha Christie's stories in this era, by the way, but without permission.

And so actually Chrissy's only given specific permission, which was that it was not to be published as an article, it had to be published as a letter.

And that it was for The Sunday Times, it was for the for the particular editor, I think.

So she got £80 out of that.

It's quite a lot of money really for in 1969.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, So, yeah, good on them for not just letting that pass by.

But I thought that was quite interesting that even a little bit of, you know, a letter would be enough to have Cosmopolitans pick it up and publish.

It Agatha's words.

Agatha's words, they're.

Very, very valuable.

Yeah.

And then in 1970, you looked at that photo as well.

Yes, I did, and it was quite fun.

In 1970s, there was something that had some similarity to what you were saying, saying about by the pricking of my thumbs because there was a rejection letter from Redbook, which was a magazine that was one that published Agatha Christie several times over the years all the way back to why didn't they ask Evans in 1933.

And they published 3rd Girl in a single volume is well, a condensed volume in one of their issues in 1967.

And they rejected a couple of stories that had been sent to them, Magnolia Blossom and next to a dog, which are very old and not really mysteries of Agatha Christie's.

So they're, they're decades old at this point.

But there's, there's various reasons for this because there were new collections coming out and there were a few things about copyright and they really wanted them to be published fairly quickly.

But this was turned down.

Both of them were turned down because they do seem awfully dated now, and to publish them as bits of Christie literary history doesn't seem to suit our mod image somehow, which I loved.

So Redbook was going, hey, look, we're swinging.

Yeah.

And the.

Mod is such contemporary slang, isn't it?

We've.

Come up against.

That a few.

Times, yeah, and Magnolia Blossom and next to a dog really aren't swinging.

They're they're they're both.

I mean, sentimental's a little bit unfair, but but they are not hard edged, they're not third girl, they're not endless Knights.

They are very much of a different era.

And like you say, that was a theme through quite a lot of the stuff that we looked at was this idea that as they're kind of dredging the archives to go, OK, what else can we find of Christie's to to bring to the fore?

Yeah, serialise or repackage or repurpose or whatever they were coming up against.

Yeah, people saying that this stuff's stated.

But interestingly, they weren't saying that of her new novels.

They weren't saying, you know, no one was saying that passengers were.

Frankfurt felt dated for all its faults.

No, no, not at all.

And that.

You said actually, when we were sat in there in the in the archive that proves our thesis that Christie move with the times because her, her, you know, we nowadays maybe don't see a big delineation between something Christie wrote early and something Christie wrote late because they're all very much packaged the same.

But to a contemporary reader, there's a world of difference between passengers to Frankfurt and, for example, next to a dog.

Absolutely.

And this, this was a big reason why there were so few short story collections in the UK in the 40s, fifties, 60s and 70s compared to America.

And they got short story collections sort of before us because actually Collins felt that they weren't as strong as what she was writing in the 50s and 60s.

And that actually she, she would perhaps dilute her reputation a bit by bringing these old stories out and putting them in public view like that.

So it's interesting that that's quite the opposite of now as popular perception now is, you know, 20s, thirties as Agatha's peak.

Yeah, that's true.

And just another quick thing was there's a very sweet letter from Phelps Platt, who's there's a high up at Dodd Mead.

So the American publisher of Agatha Christie to say that Mrs Platt and I spent a very pleasant weekend with Agatha and Max Mallowan at their place in Devon a few weeks ago.

Agatha was an excellent spirits and health better than I have seen her in some years.

So that's really lovely, isn't it?

And also says how excited she is about her upcoming 80th birthday and that passenger to Frankfurt is to be published for it.

So that's all lovely that that lovely optimism.

This isn't somebody going, oh, and they're forcing me to write another book.

She's in good health and she's really looking forward to this book coming out.

Yeah, that was really nice to see.

And actually as a side point, we we noted that there was the implication from a few different papers that that there was.

I mean, it feels like time was never in great supply, shall we say, in terms of building up to to getting something on the shelves for this Christie for Christmas tradition.

But certainly when it came to passenger to Frankfurt, it did seem like there was a particular crush to get it all ready.

And they had that deadline of wanting to get it out as close to her 80th birthday as possible because they were billing it as her 80th, but for her 80th birthday.

And I did sort of turn to you and say, you know, I wonder if this is one of the reasons why people have this.

Would we have a much different perspective of on passengers to Frankfurt if it had a slightly more rigorous edit as maybe something like Halloween party the year before had and maybe there just wasn't time In terms of the practicalities, I think it's important we remember those practicalities.

You know, publishing at the end of the day, of the day we both know is, you know, a working system with many, many factors and sometimes ideals and realities don't always kind of marry up.

So yeah, it's just something to remember added to 1972.

And Speaking of passenger to Frankfurt's, this is a couple of years after it was first published.

And I just appreciated that in 72 we had a there was AUS paperback of the Golden Ball and other stories and quoting.

Now Agatha says there are a number of points as into this publication to which she objects.

For instance, it says that this collection of old stories, and this is the quote, it's better than passenger to Frankfurt.

See, it's really are two ways to read that aren't there 'cause if you'd loved, like if you said something is better than Roger Michael, Roger Ackroyd, that is a huge, big compliment, right?

But if you say it's better than passenger to Frankfurt, there's a bit of a oh, thank goodness.

Yeah, either way, it's not the way to sell a.

Book No.

By by doing down another of her books, which presumably they'd be interested in the onward selling of as well.

But yes, as a as a long time Frankfoligist I I found that particularly amusing.

And then just sticking to the passenger to Frankfurt theme, I looked at the 1973 folder also.

And this was something you were already aware of.

Yes, it's been of my long list of things to check and on our train journey back I finally got around to doing it.

So this is a letter from Collins in the UK.

Elizabeth M Walter at Collins.

When the Fontana addition of passengers Frankfurt came out, a member of the Courthold family objected to what he felt was an unfavourable use of the name his surname, since he claims that they are the only family of that name and that even though the reference is in no way specific, it casts a slur on them.

So William spoke to Lady Mallowan and we have managed to reassure Mr Courthold so that all well and no further trouble need be expected from this quarter.

It seems that that Collins agreed to change.

Yes, they did.

Yes, they did.

And I think reading between the lines of this piece of correspondence, it's them reminding the US to follow through with that.

Yes, which they often did paperback reprint, Yes, so was court old and then it got changed to courtfold, then courtfold, Yes.

That's famous name.

Yes, absolutely.

Yes.

I'm not that I know any court as well.

I guess that's his point.

Well, his Yeah, right.

And and you should know whether you know any or not, that they're an upstanding.

People, absolutely, because the context is Charleston Conway and Court Fold, who apparently were fully trusted.

But crookedest sin.

So you can imagine that being told that yes, while people might trust you, you're crookedest sin perhaps isn't the impression you want.

Maybe I see now why he wanted that change and then in the 1975 folder.

Agassa Christie writes to Dorothy Olding and mentions how she had fond memories of coming to the US nine years earlier.

So that's quite a long time, isn't it, to still be thinking about a trip that that she obviously so enjoyed and obviously towards the end of Agatha Christie's life.

Now, I also noticed that there was a theme we used a lot in 1976.

And maybe it's because it's just after Agatha Christie dies in January that year that there's a real theme of protecting the Agatha Christie name really, really quickly.

And especially from unauthorised publications, which are not necessarily like, you know, illegal publications, But think books about Agatha Christie that aren't licenced, which you're allowed to do, but that sometimes you're stepping over the mark of what fair use of, of things like quotations and stuff stuff are.

And there's a mention of Matthew finding a book in when he goes to Washington, isn't there, of the mysterious world of Agatha Christie, which he didn't seem to be very happy with.

And actually, Rosalind writes a little list of ones that she's found out about.

And they're very conscious of saying, look, we know there's an autobiography that's going to come soon.

And also we, we just want to protect what is being said about Agatha Christie in this immediate aftermath of, of obviously her passing.

Yeah, we did observe that it seems like after the Ramsey book, Agatha Christie, Mistress of Mystery, Yeah, that we talked about in the podcast before which we, which we specifically called out as one of the first, if not the first time that that her writing had been written about in that way.

I think so.

Yeah, absolutely.

And but it seemed, looking at these photos today, it struck me that that not not kind of consciously, but very much opened the floodgates actually for a lot of this kind of writing that seemed to crop up, yeah, quite a lot in these files, as you say.

People trying to do biographies and analysis and all sorts of things.

Maybe because it was apparent in the time that we're looking at that she was coming towards the end of her career or indeed at the end of her career as as we're now talking about 1976.

I'd like to observe actually that it felt, you know, we almost went through the folders chronologically and although there was not a huge amount in them from Agatha herself, because obviously a lot of it is the American agents correspondence.

I don't know, it kind of hit me when she, when she passed, when we hit that point chronologically because it is such a seismic moment and you forget, I think when we talk about her work all the time, as we've done on this project and and in various other things, you, you can lose sight of the real person sometimes.

And you know this.

It was really nice actually to feel like we had another type of look at her today, another type of glimpse of her through all this correspondence if the time.

Is now 1021.

Please say clear and close and train doors Track 20.

You do have the whole.

Board Track 20 so had a great time at the Shubert.

And didn't we just at the beautiful Shubert Archive?

Yes, it's in the penthouse of a theatre.

In Broadway.

On Broadway, yes, just off Broadway.

And I was so excited when I got the e-mail to say, oh, this is, you know, just confirming arrangements to say and we're going to take you up to the penthouse in a hand operated lift.

Oh yes.

Oh my God, surely it's not going to be one of those really exciting cage lift.

And it was.

Yeah.

Yes, we were very clearly and closely reassured that it's checked regularly.

And then it's definitely very.

Sad and not just the lift so many like properly period detail like they still have chairs that Shuba owned and yes furnished like beautiful desk.

And that amazing hatch, which you can open up and you can see straight onto the stage.

Yeah.

So that when?

There's a performance going on.

You can see what's going on you.

Wanted to be able to yeah, check it, check in on the production.

Which is so cool.

I love that the.

Perfect view set stage from from above.

Unfortunately, we didn't find anything of interest to.

Our swinging project?

No.

But that doesn't mean that plenty for me, yes.

Yeah, there's a lot of other stuff.

That I know I'm going to use for my other project.

So that's, yes, secret, sort of, but I'm really excited to talk about it.

Because, you know, it's a great slice of history in terms of Broadway, Yeah, Which.

And I think.

There is no stranger to Broadway, but not in the 60s.

None of the plays that she wrote in the 60s kind of made it.

Yeah.

We had hoped maybe we'd see, you know, in a dream world, we'd see a letter that was explaining why, why they've decided to turn down the rats or something.

But alas.

Yeah.

But we did see.

I think that my.

Favourite thing that I saw was about in the war when they were putting on towards Zero and they had to apply for extra shoe rations.

So for the costume, it's just, it's those kind of, like you said, little bits of colour, little sort of period details.

Yeah.

You just wouldn't.

Yes.

Only that kind of archive research throws up.

Yeah.

And now we're at the training station.

Yes, which you may have guessed.

Ready to head off to the next part of our American adventure, which is Washington, DC?

Yeah.

Very exciting, got lots to look at there and I know that we're gonna enjoy some and some of that setting up for a talk we're doing later this year as well.

True.

Yeah, some of this stuff we're looking at in DC we're gonna use for our Torquay talk.

Yeah.

At the International Agatha Christie Festival, Which?

Tickets are still available.

As at time recording tickets are still available.

So yeah, we're very excited about that.

So hope to see some of you there.

Yeah, definitely.

And yeah, TuneIn next week for Part 2, Washington, DC.

Yes.

Yeah.

So please do.

Get in touch with us.

Do most importantly.

If you haven't already, please rate and review us.

Wherever you.

Get your podcasts.

It really, really does help us out.

We rely on word of mouth to reach fellow fellow Christy bands, so please do.

Yeah, you can find us on Instagram at Christy Underscore time.

Our blue sky is Christy time dot B sky dot social.

You can also e-mail us at christytimeprodthatsprodforproductions@gmail.com.

Our website ischristytime.com which got lots of information about lots of our sources but also upcoming events you can find there.

You can find Grey on his website at greyrobertbrown.wixsite.com/grey Robert Brown and I'm on Instagram at Doctor Mark Aldridge, Blue Sky at markaldridge.info, which is also my website, and of course my book Agathe Christie's Marple, which I've mentioned once or.

Twice is available.

Now, as is Morrow and.

Agathe Christie on screen, I should say.

Bye bye.

Keep swinging.

Keep.

Swing.

Thanks for listening my big apples.

The Swinging Christies is a Christie time.

Project by Doctor Mark Aldridge and.

Greg.

Robert Brown.

This episode was recorded between the 18th and the 22nd of May 2025.

Our artwork was designed by Bartlett Studio and our music is by Dar Golan.

Anybody.

Know.

The train number 434340.

3 Hello and welcome to the Swinging Christie's, the podcast about Agatha Christie in the swinging 60s I'm Mark Aldridge.

I'm an Agatha Christie historian and writer and author of Agatha Christie's Marple Expert on Wickedness, which I don't know if you saw great, won the HRF Keating Award.

Didn't I actually?

Stop it.

Yeah, it didn't.

No way.

Oh, Congrats.

Thank you.

First time I've ever won an award for anything, no.

As an adult I've probably got like a spelling award or something at school.

I've got maths award at school but that is a little one.

A while ago.

Well, I'll consider my congratulations.

90% for the maths award and 10% for the was that is it up for something else?

Isn't it as?

Well, it was up for an Agatha but didn't win it.

When was that?

About 3 weeks ago OK yeah got nominated for just about everything.

I didn't win anything and.

That's really good then.

Didn't didn't get nominated for the Edgar, did get nominated for the Agatha and for this.

All of my.

Christie books have been nominated Fate Draught Keating award and this is the only one that's won it.

Ohh so even Agatha Christie on screen got a nomination for it?

Ohh, that's really good.

That's a really nice trajectory.

Yeah, isn't.

That nice.