Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple, one of Christie's greatest creations.
Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple, one of Christie's greatest creations.
More than 15,000 fanshave spoken, and now Agatha Christie's best novel has been unveiled.
And Then There Were None, first published in 1939, has been selected as the crime author's best work after a five month search.
The online poll was set up by her estate in order to celebrateChristie's 125th birthday this month.
"It's probably the book my grandmother was proudest of," Christie's grandson, Matthew Prichard, told The Guardian. "It would have been a big surprise if it hadn't won - it's a very worthy winner."
"It you read it carefully, it rests on a knife edge. It's very carefully and skilfully constructed, to get away, so to speak, with a plot as complicated as this, and to end up with a solution which you can actually see at the end that it works."
And Then There Were None tells the story of 10 strangers summoned to a mysterious island. During dinner, a recording reveals each of them is hiding a secret, and they slowly begin to get killed off one by one.
The novel is currently being adapted by the BBC, with Sam Neill, Poldark's Aidan Turner and post shop supporter Charles Dance among the cast.
The Christie estate says the novel has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling crime novel of all time.
