Author Agatha Christie wrote 66 detective novels, 14 short story collections, and ‘The Mousetrap’, the world’s longest running play, as well as 6 novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. She is the world’s best selling fiction writer, only being outsold by Shakespeare and the Bible and was made a Dame in 1971 for her services to literature.

Agatha had several ties with London, both in her private life as well as in her work. Her great aunt lived in Ealing, and Agatha explored the area, walking in fields near St Stephens Church and living at 99 Uxbridge Road when she was young. In 1901 on the first day of the electric trams running in Ealing, Agatha wrote a poem which was published in a local newspaper which was the first of her writing to appear in print. Agatha studied to be a pharmaceutical assistant during the First World War, and sat her exams in the wooden panelled Great Hall at the Apothecaries' Hall, which is the headquarters of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London.

She lived in several houses in London, including 58 Sheffield Terrace with her second husband Max, and 22 Lawn Road Flat in Hampstead during the Second World War while Max was overseas. This Art Deco block was also lived in at the time by spies working for the Soviet Union, and the block is still there today, and now known as the Isokon Flats. After her divorce from her first husband she bought a mews house at 22 Cresswell Place in Chelsea which she owned for the rest of her life.

Agatha was a regular visitor at several of London’s hotels, some of which gave inspiration for the hotels in her books, including Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair, which apparently was the inspiration for the hotel in ‘At Bertrams Hotel’. Claridge’s Hotel also appears in some of her books, and was the location for the celebrations she attended after the premiere of the 1974 film of ‘Murder on the Orient Express’. The Ritz Hotel and the Savoy Hotel both make appearances, the Savoy has hosted several celebrations for ‘The Mousetrap’ play, including when it became the world’s longest running play, where it is traditional for the celebratory cake to be cut with a sword.

The Mousetrap opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in 1952, and moved next door to St Martin’s Theatre in 1974. It has been continuously running since it opened, only stopping in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. There is a neon sign on the front of the theatre which shows how long it has been running, which is updated each year.

Her characters Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot appear in several books and many television programmes and films have been made. Several London buildings and streets have been used in filming, which are suitable for the setting of the book. The Hoover Building was used in ‘The Dream’ and ‘King of Clubs’, the decadent Arab Hall in Leighton House and 8 Addison Road in ‘Cards on the Table’, and Senate House in ‘The Veiled Lady’ and ‘The Double Clue’ are just a few. The well preserved Georgian era shop fronts on Woburn Walk have been used for street scenes, The Royal Masonic Hospital in ‘Wasp’s Nest’ and the penguin pool at London Zoo in ‘The Incredible Theft’. Florin Court on the east side of Charterhouse Square makes many appearances as Whitehaven Mansions, which is where Hercule Poirot lives.