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| Agatha Christie as a Young Woman |
Agatha
Christie is often listed as the bestselling novelist of all time. If the list
is for fiction writers instead of just novelists, then Shakespeare takes the top
spot. Even with a four hundred year head start, Christie may be catching up with The
Bard because royalties from her books are estimated to still exceed £5m a
year. In a 2002 relaunch of the 1939 And Then There Were None, the book became a surprise
bestseller.
Christie
wrote 85 books and sold well over two billion copies. And Then There Were None sold 100 million all by itself. The success of the 1965 Hollywood
remake of the story caused subsequent editions of the book to be retitled Ten Little Indians. Her works have been translated into every major language and
UNESCO named her the most translated author in the world.
Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle became annoyed with Sherlock Holmes so he killed him. Never
fear, he used a novelist's magic powers to bring the famous detective back to life. Similarly, Dame Agatha Christie grew tired of Poirot, once describing
him as "insufferable" and "an egocentric creep".
Christie
invented the classic murder mystery structure. A murder is committed with
multiple suspects and secrets are gradually revealed with a surprise twist at
the end. Murder mysteries are active reading, with the reader knowing all the clues uncovered by the investigator. The fun is guessing the guilty party. There have
been truckloads of murder mystery written but few compare with "The Queen
of Crime."
I studied
Agatha Christie and other mystery writers before I started Murder at Thumb Butte. I wanted to use the Steve Dancy characters in a traditional murder
mystery, albeit in the Wild West with gun play, horses, rowdy saloons, and
celebrity frontiersmen like Doc Holiday and Vergil Earp.
I haven’t
sold nearly as many copies as Christie, but I’m happy that the novel has found a
large audience. 159 Amazon readers rated the book 4.4 stars, and 434 Goodreads
fans gave the book an average score of 4.2. C. K. Crigger in Roundup Magazine
wrote, "This is a well-plotted mystery, as well as a terrific Old West
story. Best has a great character in Steve Dancy, and has created an excellent
cast of secondary characters."
If you like murder mysteries, westerns, or
historical novels, Murder at Thumb Butte should be your next book. The novel has been available in print, ebook, and large print. Recently Jim
Tedder did an exceptional job narrating the audiobook version.
