A globetrotting woman of mystery

Agatha Christie fans will devour Duchess of Death, a new biography of the mystery matriarch by author Richard Hack.

As Hack points out, Christie sold over 2 billion books translated into 105 languages. Her output was incredible: 90 novels and short-story collections and 157 short stories. Her play "The Mousetrap" has been performed continuously since 1952.

Hack's book is drawn from more than 5,000 unpublished letters, notes and documents. This is not a work for the casual Christie reader -- Duchess of Death is sometimes weighed down by details.

But the dense biography sings when Hack recounts Christie's globetrotting in the waning days of the British Empire. …