# How weird is it that Agatha Christie used real people lives when they were still alive? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 15, 2017, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-weird-is-it-that-agatha-christie-used-real-people-lives-when-they-were-still-alive/801650 "2017-11-15T01:15:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Rough\_Draft](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@Rough\_Draft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rough_Draft)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2017, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-weird-is-it-that-agatha-christie-used-real-people-lives-when-they-were-still-alive/801650/21 "2017-11-22T17:02:09Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Yeah, but in **Strong Poison** she has Lord Peter pawing all over her. I thought I would start with **Gaudy Night** because Harriet is the center of attention. _Strong Poison_ is good. I thought it was interesting that Sayers made the mystery more about how the murder was done rather than who the murderer was. I agree that the Lord Peter-Harriet relationship was weird. I seem to recall that he basically proposed to her at their first meeting. Not only that, but it was just after her murder trial had ended in a hung jury. Great timing! I look forward to reading more of Sayers. I have _Gaudy Night_ requested from the library, but there are several people in line ahead of me. Which reminds me: when I started reading these Golden Age mysteries, I was surprised to find that there was such a high demand for them. I’ve had to wait a month or more for some Christie titles from my fairly large suburban Denver library system. That’s some enduring appeal! ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2017, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-weird-is-it-that-agatha-christie-used-real-people-lives-when-they-were-still-alive/801650/22 "2017-11-22T20:22:34Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Christie really did invent so many whodunit plot twist genres, you might say. Just off the top of my head we have > > everybody did it, the story narrator did it, the local police inspector did it, Poirot himself did it, I’m probably leaving out some good ones, please feel free to fill them inand I’m really glad for the sake of the puzzles that everyone was always a suspect. Yes, Marsh was a better writer, certainly Rendell was a much better writer even in her Inspector Wexford books, but those books are not primarily puzzles. You care about the characters at least somewhat. Christie is all about the puzzle, and I don’t think anyone I have read did that better. > > There’s also > > the apparent intended victim did it, in at least three different books, to the point where if there was an unsuccessful attempt at murder, I started looking at the intended victim very closely indeed. Here’s another one: two people with completely different motives not working together committed the murders ---
**Author:** ![Hermione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cdc98d/32.png) [@Hermione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermione)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2017, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-weird-is-it-that-agatha-christie-used-real-people-lives-when-they-were-still-alive/801650/23 "2017-11-23T05:03:54Z")
As much as I love Murder on the Orient Express and its movie versions (including the most recent one), I can’t help but wonder how the Lindberghs felt to see their tragedy used as backstory for a bestseller. (Right down to the falsely accused servant girl who killed herself over it.) ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2017, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-weird-is-it-that-agatha-christie-used-real-people-lives-when-they-were-still-alive/801650/24 "2017-11-23T05:55:45Z")
> [@Hermione](#): > > As much as I love Murder on the Orient Express and its movie versions (including the most recent one), I can’t help but wonder how the Lindberghs felt to see their tragedy used as backstory for a bestseller. (Right down to the falsely accused servant girl who killed herself over it.) Me too, or the fact that Mrs. Lindbergh was pregnant, although the stress did not cause a miscarriage. And in Gene Tierney’s case, she never sought revenge on the woman (and she did know who it was-- the part of the story where she meets the gushing fan years later is even true), and in fact claimed to have forgiven her. Apparently, there was a cloud over her when the book came out, because a lot of people assumed she had expressed a desire to kill the woman who gave her Rubella. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2017, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-weird-is-it-that-agatha-christie-used-real-people-lives-when-they-were-still-alive/801650/25 "2017-11-23T07:51:43Z")
I’ve read practically all of Christie and much of the work of the others. Some of the American authors gave them a run for their money too, especially Ellery Queen (Dannay and Lee) and John Dickson Carr, the master of the locked room murder. His Hollow Man or The Three Coffins ranks with Christie’s Murder of Roger Ackroyd as one of the cleverest whodunnits ever written. ---
**Author:** ![Skara\_Brae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Skara\_Brae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skara_Brae)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2017, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-weird-is-it-that-agatha-christie-used-real-people-lives-when-they-were-still-alive/801650/26 "2017-11-23T14:20:03Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Me too, or the fact that Mrs. Lindbergh was pregnant, although the stress did not cause a miscarriage. > > And in Gene Tierney’s case, she never sought revenge on the woman (and she did know who it was-- the part of the story where she meets the gushing fan years later is even true), and in fact claimed to have forgiven her. Apparently, there was a cloud over her when the book came out, because a lot of people assumed she had expressed a desire to kill the woman who gave her Rubella. Perhaps more problematic is that the character based on her in _The Mirror Crack’d_, besides being a murdered, is a pretty awful person. As I recall, she adopts 3 children and then abandons them the second she becomes pregnant, and she later does not even recognize one of them. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2017, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-weird-is-it-that-agatha-christie-used-real-people-lives-when-they-were-still-alive/801650/27 "2017-11-23T15:55:04Z")
> [@Skara\_Brae](#): > > Perhaps more problematic is that the character based on her in _The Mirror Crack’d_, besides being a murdered, is a pretty awful person. As I recall, she adopts 3 children and then abandons them the second she becomes pregnant, and she later does not even recognize one of them. Yeah. Gene Tierney was not an awful person. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-weird-is-it-that-agatha-christie-used-real-people-lives-when-they-were-still-alive/801650.md?page=1)