Agatha Christie's legacy

In The Guardian, writer Frances Fyfield looks back at Agatha Christie's mysterious disappearance in 1926 and argues that she transformed the public's perceptions of female crime writers.

She established a fascination for the female crime-writing species that has stood others, such as me, in good stead. She inadvertently created the idea that women are ideally suited to the writing of murder mysteries, even though this talent means that they are possibly intriguingly warped, manipulative and unfeminine personalities to do it in the first place. She gave all who followed an edgy mystery and the suggestion of hidden depths. It's a wonderfully helpful slander. Her disappearing act contributed to the allure and the status. There will always be queens of crime, but rarely kings.