The House of Dreams is the first story Agatha Christie ever wrote (during the First World War) and recounts the effects of a macabre recurring dream on a man's life. The Actress tells of a woman who turns the tables on her blackmailer, The Edge is a gripping tale of jealousy and infidelity, The Lonely God is an unlikely love story about two lost souls who meet in the British Museum, and Within a Wall tells of a tragic love triangle between a portrait painter, his wife and his daughter's godmother. Christmas Adventure and The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest see Hercule Poirot caught up in some unseasonal mayhem, and in Manx Gold, commissioned from Christie for a real-life treasure hunt on the Isle of Man in 1930, two young heroes race against time to discover buried treasure. The book concludes with While the Light Lasts, in which a Rhodesian tobacco plantation is the setting for an unexpected visitor from beyond the grave…

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.