The Thirteen Problems

Juliet Stevenson reads Agatha Christie’s The Thirteen Problems, the series of linked short stories that introduced readers to the Tuesday Night Club and to the woman who would become the world’s most popular female detective, Miss Jane Marple.

A weekly dinner party

Ten amateur sleuths

The Tuesday Night Club murders

On a quiet Tuesday in St Mary Mead, a group of friends gather for dinner.

A policeman, a clergyman, a solicitor, an author, an artist, and an unassuming lady with a shrewd gaze – Miss Jane Marple. Conversation naturally turns to crime.

Each recounts a seemingly unsolvable mystery. Each thinks they know the answer.

But it’s the one they least expect who understands the true nature of each wicked act…

Never underestimate Miss Marple

‘Billions of readers can’t be wrong.’
Dreda Say Mitchell

‘The plots are so good that one marvels . . . most of them would have made a full-length thriller.’
Daily Mirror

Reviews

‘Without a doubt, the greatest mystery writer of all time’ – Ragnar Jonasson

‘A hundred years after her first novel, and we are all still standing in her shadow’ – Andrew Taylor

‘She gives us an insight into human nature that few, if any, have surpassed’ – Susan Lewis

‘Dame Agatha has sold more books than all besides Shakespeare and the Bible’ – David Baldacci

‘All crime fiction writers around the globe owe Agatha Christie a massive debt’ – Peter James

‘Reading a perfectly plotted Agatha Christie is like crunching into a perfect apple: that pure, crisp, absolute satisfaction.’ – Tana French

About the author

Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890 and became, quite simply, the best-selling novelist in history. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written towards the end of the First World War, introduced us to Hercule Poirot, who was to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes. She is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in over 100 foreign languages. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays, and six novels under the name of Mary Westmacott.