Gipsy's Acre was a truly beautiful upland site with views out to sea – and in Michael Rogers it stirred a child-like fantasy.

There, among the dark fir trees, he planned to build a house, find a wonderful girl and live happily ever after,

Yet, as he left the village, a shadow of menace hung over the land. For this was the place where accidents happened.

Perhaps Michael should have heeded the locals' warnings: ‘There's no luck for them as meddles with Gipsy's Acre'.

Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890 and became, quite simply, the best-selling novelist in history. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written towards the end of the First World War, introduced us to Hercule Poirot, who was to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes. She is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in over 100 foreign languages. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays, and six novels under the name of Mary Westmacott.