The Unexpected Guest

Adapted from Christie's play The Unexpected Guest. In rural Wales, a passerby discovers a man murdered and a house full of people with good reason to have murdered him.

Wall Street Journal - Tom Nolan

The Unexpected Guest is a twist-filled tale of murder in a country house in Wales, is the second Christie stage play adapted as a novel by Charles Osborne; and, as with last year's best-selling Black Coffee, the results are smooth and bracing.

Agatha Christie is the author of eighty crime novels and collections of stories, nineteen plays, six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott, two volumes of poetry, a volume of Christmas verse and stories, an autobiography, and Come, Tell Me How You Live. She is the creator of some of the most enduring figures of crime literature as well as the author of The Mousetrap, the longest running play in the history of modern theater. Christie was awarded the CBE (Commander, Order of the British Empire) in 1956 and was made a Dame Commander, Order of the British Empire, in 1971. She was president of the Detection Club (1954) and was the first writer to be awarded the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award (1955). Agatha Christie died on January 12, 1976.

Charles Osborne is a world authority on theater and opera and has written a wide range of fiction and non-fiction. He is the author of The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie as well as the novelizations of Christie's plays, the best-selling Black Coffee and The Unexpected Guest. He lives in London.