JUST JILLIAN BLOG POST: Agatha Christie - in the library with a candlestick

having just watched a crime drama series on Channel 4 called hero it's Spanish with English subtitles and comes highly recommended I'm having a nostalgic look back to when I lived in a neighboring Canary Island tenie the hero portrayed is similar to the tenie of my youth few tourists were in the north where we lived with a inspiring coastlines banana plantations and dramatic Barren volcanic terrain around much of the rest of the island this was before tourism took over and the small fishing villages became concrete jungles the narrow streets of the small towns the small simple whitewashed houses with flat roofs to dry the washing and the Canarian culture all felt very familiar it was an idolic place for a child to grow up and also the place where I was first introduced to a library the English Library a bungalow set in its own colorful Gardens was just outside the gates of our school and became a regular destination for me to keep topped up with books to supplement the ones my parents had shipped out to me from home I quickly outgrew the children's section after reading and rereading what was on offer and then moved on probably prematurely to the Agatha Christi novels so-called teenage novels didn't seem to exist in those days her novels have since been one of my comfort reads and ones that I go back to regularly I was unaware until more recent years of the connection that Agatha Christi had with tenie she holidayed in Puerto De La Cruz in 1927 staying just a short walk away from the English library in the h Hotel Toro in fact she is said to have written one of her novels there during her stay chances are that she may also have visited the library itself as it was opened in 1903 the Literati of the town have cashed in on The Connection by starting an Agatha Christi International Festival there becoming a destination for many fans and aicos of the author I visited the English Lang the English Library when we were back in tenie recently it's still an operation though has since been renovated and extended so the walk-in cupboard that once held the children's books has now evoking Echoes of Narnia become the portal to a brand new area within the library the Exotic settings of some of Agatha's books have inspired and intrigued me through the years from the Orient Express to Mesopotamia and Egypt as well as the more mundane quintessential English villages with their Rose covered Gardens Village ponds and Country Gentry I also always loved the variety of methods of dispatching of victims as well as trying to guess who done it I wonder if many people have been inspired to use their garden plants as methods of poisoning their enemies there seems to be plenty of scope according to Agatha there have been numerous films TV drama series and radio plays made of her plots in fact some have nothing really to do at all with the novels as her characters especially heru PUO and Miss marpel have found themselves solving many Mysteries not of Agatha's making in total she wrote 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections and she's called the queen of crime biographers have also been plentiful and much has been made of her disappearance for days after her separation from her husband there's nothing like a true life mystery to Intrigue the public further her Legacy to Crime fiction is incontrovertible as is obvious from the continued popularity of her books long may Agatha's book books Grace the shelves of art libraries and keep those little gray cells working as we try to work out who done it but hopefully not in the library with the candlestick