Christie Around the World

Top crime trio Vaseem Khan, Victoria Dowd and Martin Edwards discuss the Queen of Crime's influence across the globe.

Translated into innumerable languages and a wide variety of formats worldwide, Agatha Christie's work has been adapted in ways that would, no doubt, have surprised and delighted the author. From all-singing, all-dancing Bollywood screen adaptations to French graphic novels to a Chinese Poirot, Christie's creations are finding a home wherever a mystery-appreciative audience can be found. What are the connecting threads driving this universal popularity? How do regional tastes influence the Christie template? What's the 'strangest' adaptation of a Christie work? Our panellists will explore these vital questions in a session that no true Christie fan can afford to miss!

Supported by Great Western Railway.

Our exhibition, Agatha Christie: A World of Mystery, is in collaboration with Agatha Christie Limited and The Christie Archive Trust.

Vaseem Khan is also the author of the Q Mysteries, beginning with Quantum of Menace, the first in a murder mystery series featuring Q from the James Bond franchise. His debut, The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, was selected by the Sunday Times as one of the 40 best crime novels published 2015–2020. In 2021, Midnight at Malabar House, the first in the Malabar House novels set in 1950s Bombay, won the CWA Historical Dagger. In 2025, his first psychological thriller, The Girl in Cell A, set in small-town America was published.

Vaseem was born in England, but spent a decade working in India. From 2023 – 2025, Vaseem served as the Chair of the UK Crime Writers’ Association.

Her novel, The Smart Woman’s Guide to Murder, won The People’s Book Prize for fiction and was In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel’s Book of the Year. She was awarded the Gothic Fiction prize. Victoria is the Vice Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association and was a criminal defence barrister. The latest novel in her historical crime series is Threefold Death. Her standalone novel, The New Rules of Murder, will be published by Sphere in June next year.

Martin Edwards’ 25 crime novels include most recently Fever Island, the latest in the Rachel Savernake series; the Lake District Cold Case Mysteries; the Harry Devlin books, and the bestselling stand-alone Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife. His three Daggers include the CWA Diamond Dagger, the highest honour in UK crime writing, and he has two Edgars from the Mystery Writers of America. He has received lifetime achievement awards for his fiction, non-fiction, short stories, and scholarship. He is consultant to the British Library’s Crime Classics, and has been President of the Detection Club since 2015.