English Professor Speaks on Agatha Christie at Fayetteville Public Library

On Sept. 2, Casey Kayser, associate professor in the Department of English, gave a talk titled "Agatha Christie & True Crime Inspirations" at Fayetteville Public Library as part of their "Remembering Agatha Christie, the Queen of Crime" series, a celebration of the author on the 50th anniversary of her death.

Christie is the best-selling fiction writer of all time and was a very prolific writer, with 66 mystery novels, 14 short story collections, more than 20 plays and six additional novels written under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. Her work has wide appeal, especially among fans of mystery and detective fiction.

Kayser said, "It was so fun to research Christie's true crime inspirations and how she put them to work in her novels, as well as the intriguing intersections between fiction and reality in her own life. I enjoyed speaking with other Agatha Christie fans in the community, who had interesting insights to share about their reading experiences and thoughts on Christie as well."

Kayser teaches courses in crime fiction in the English Department at the U of A and teaches Christie's work in her courses. Kayser is a fan of true crime books and documentaries, so she enjoyed putting together this talk and researching Christie's true crime inspirations.

Christie often took inspiration from true crimes she read about in the newspaper, though she usually used the backstory and put her own imaginative spin on the real-life events. For instance, Christie's novel Murder on the Orient Express was inspired by the 1932 Lindbergh baby kidnapping. Her play The Mousetrap was based upon the real-life tragic murder of a young man, Dennis O'Neill, at the hands of his foster father. Kayser also looked at the blurred lines between fiction and reality in Christie's own life, most notably with her mysterious 11-day disappearance in 1926, the circumstances of which seemed ripped out of the pages of a detective novel.