Death in the Clouds

From seat No. 9, Hercule Poirot was ideally placed to observe his fellow air passengers. Over to his right sat a pretty young woman, clearly infatuated with the man opposite; ahead, in seat No. 13, sat a countess with a poorly concealed cocaine habit; across the gangway in seat No. 8, a detective writer was being troubled by an aggressive wasp. What Poirot did not yet realize was that behind him, in seat No. 2, sat the slumped, lifeless body of a woman.

Agatha Christie is the world's best selling mystery writer. After several rejections, The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published to instant acclaim, launching what became the unparalleled career of "The Queen of Mystery." Over the course of more than half a century she wrote eighty crime novels and short story collections, nineteen plays, and several poetry collections. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in the English language and another billion in a hundred other languages. Agatha Christie died in 1976.