When it comes to sales of fiction, only Shakespeare comes close to crime expert Agatha Christie - both are estimated to have shifted at least billion copies of their novels and plays respectively.
The Queen of Crime wrote 66 detective novels - including those featuring her two best-known characters, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot - along with 14 short story collection.
She also wrote the play The Mousetrap, which became the world’s longest-running play after first being staged in London’s West End in 1952 (February 20124 saw its 29,500th performance).
With so many Agatha Chistie books to choose from, it’s hard for a beginner to know where to start.
To help out, we’ve had a look at how the millions of readers of book website Goodreads have rated her books.
Here are the top 10.
1. And Then There Were None
Leading the way, with and average rating of 4.28 from an enormous 1,379,484 reviews is And Then There Were None. The book has gone through a couple of different name changes due to modern sensibilities since being first published in 1939, and was most recenlty called 10 Little Indians. "Ten people, each with something to hide and something to fear, are invited to an isolated mansion on Indian Island by a host who, surprisingly, fails to appear. On the island they are cut off from everything but each other and the inescapable shadows of their own past lives. One by one, the guests share the darkest secrets of their wicked pasts. And one by one, they die... Which among them is the killer and will any of them survive?" | Contributed
2. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Taking second spot with readers in the list of Agatha Christie all-time greats is the fourth in her series following the adventures of Hercule Poirot. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was published in 1926 and earns an average rating of 4.27 from 280,332 reviews. "Roger Ackroyd knew too much. He knew that the woman he loved had poisoned her brutal first husband. He suspected also that someone had been blackmailing her. Now, tragically, came the news that she had taken her own life with a drug overdose. But the evening post brought Roger one last fatal scrap of information. Unfortunately, before he could finish the letter, he was stabbed to death." | Contributed
3. Murder on the Orient Express
Another of Christie's most famous books starring Hercule Poirot takes third sport - 1934's Murder on the Orient Express scores an average rating of 4.20 from 632,414 reviews. It's the 10th book to feature the Belgian detective. "Just after midnight, a snowdrift stopped the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train was surprisingly full for the time of the year. But by the morning there was one passenger fewer. An American lay dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. With tension mounting, detective Hercule Poirot comes up with not one, but two solutions to the crime." | Contributed
4. Death on the Nile
The 18th in Christie's series of Hercule Poirot novels takes fourth spot. Death on the Nile, recently turned into a novel starring Kenneth Brannagh, was published in 1937 and scores an average rating of 4.12 avg rating from 263,828 reviews. "The tranquillity of a cruise along the Nile is shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway has been shot through the head. She was young, stylish and beautiful, a girl who had everything – until she lost her life. Hercule Poirot recalls an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger: ‘I’d like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger.’ Yet in this exotic setting nothing is ever quite what it seems…" | Contributed