Sally and Tony Hope: Agatha Christie: Plots, Clues and Misdirections

Opening the final day of our Literary Festival we are thrilled to welcome speakers Sally and Tony Hope, who are authors of the fascinating book Agatha Christie: Plots, Clues and Misdirections. These two doctors will examine the exquisite structure that lies beneath Agatha Christie’s whodunnit puzzles. They will show how Christie weaves together plots, clues and misdirections to entrance the reader. Agatha Christie was continually creative in finding new ways to baffle her readers drawing on her interests in psychology and literature.

Plot spoiler: The speakers will use After the Funeral as a worked example whilst making the point that reading a Christie novel, knowing the solution, can also be a great pleasure.

Sally and Tony Hope are retired doctors. They are authors of Agatha Christie: Plots, Clues and Misdirections which examines Christie’s skills as a whodunnit writer. The book illustrates how Christie uses a combination of diverse plots, cunning clues and subtle misdirections to set her puzzles. Sally and Tony Hope have also written a blog poirotscore.com on each of Christie’s 66 crime novels.

Tony was a psychiatrist and the first Professor of Medical Ethics at the University of Oxford. He has written several books for a general audience (Manage Your Mind; Medical Ethics: A Very Short Introduction) and was the founding co-author of The Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine.

Sally was a general practitioner. She was the medical columnist on Best magazine for six years.