Agatha Christie Books in Order: A Complete Reading Guide
Updated September 2026
Agatha Christie Books in Order: The Short Answer
Agatha Christie published 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections (counting the British editions) between 1920 and 1976, the last two appearing after her death. The clearest way to read the Agatha Christie books in order is by detective, starting with The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920). They break down like this:
- Hercule Poirot: 33 novels, from The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) to Curtain (1975)
- Miss Marple: 12 novels, from The Murder at the Vicarage (1930) to Sleeping Murder (1976)
- Tommy and Tuppence: 4 novels and 1 story collection, 1922 to 1973
- Other novels: 17, including And Then There Were None and the Superintendent Battle books
Below you will find every novel listed by detective in publication order, with years, then the story collections. Years are first publication; a few books came out in the U.S. a few months before Britain, sometimes under a different title.
If you only want to know which book to pick up first, we have a separate guide, Where to Start with Agatha Christie. This page is the complete checklist.
In this guide:
- When Reading Order Matters, and When It Doesn't
- Hercule Poirot Books in Order
- Miss Marple Books in Order
- Tommy and Tuppence Books in Order
- Standalones, Superintendent Battle and Colonel Race
- Agatha Christie Short Story Collections in Order
- Reading Age and Content Notes for Christie
- Poirot and Marple on Screen, From Suchet to Netflix
- Building a Christie Shelf Secondhand
- Frequently Asked Questions
When Reading Order Matters, and When It Doesn't
Mostly no. Each mystery is self-contained, and Christie rarely referred back to earlier cases. Reading them in order by detective has two real benefits, though. You get to watch recurring characters like Captain Hastings, Inspector Japp and the novelist Ariadne Oliver come and go, and you avoid a handful of spoilers where a later book mentions the solution of an earlier one. Poirot in particular sometimes mentions old cases in passing, which can take the edge off an earlier solution. If that bothers you, stick to the order below.
Two books break the rule. Curtain, Poirot's last case, and Sleeping Murder, Miss Marple's, were written during the Second World War and locked away for publication after Christie's death. Read Curtain last no matter what. Sleeping Murder can go anywhere.
Hercule Poirot Books in Order
The fussy Belgian detective with the "little grey cells" is Christie's most famous creation. Readers who grew up on Sherlock Holmes usually take to him quickly, and our Arthur Conan Doyle books in order guide covers Holmes the same way.
| # | Title | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Mysterious Affair at Styles | 1920 |
| 2 | The Murder on the Links | 1923 |
| 3 | The Murder of Roger Ackroyd | 1926 |
| 4 | The Big Four | 1927 |
| 5 | The Mystery of the Blue Train | 1928 |
| 6 | Peril at End House | 1932 |
| 7 | Lord Edgware Dies | 1933 |
| 8 | Murder on the Orient Express | 1934 |
| 9 | Three Act Tragedy | 1935 |
| 10 | Death in the Clouds | 1935 |
| 11 | The A.B.C. Murders | 1936 |
| 12 | Murder in Mesopotamia | 1936 |
| 13 | Cards on the Table | 1936 |
| 14 | Dumb Witness | 1937 |
| 15 | Death on the Nile | 1937 |
| 16 | Appointment with Death | 1938 |
| 17 | Hercule Poirot's Christmas | 1938 |
| 18 | Sad Cypress | 1940 |
| 19 | One, Two, Buckle My Shoe | 1940 |
| 20 | Evil Under the Sun | 1941 |
| 21 | Five Little Pigs | 1942 |
| 22 | The Hollow | 1946 |
| 23 | Taken at the Flood | 1948 |
| 24 | Mrs McGinty's Dead | 1952 |
| 25 | After the Funeral | 1953 |
| 26 | Hickory Dickory Dock | 1955 |
| 27 | Dead Man's Folly | 1956 |
| 28 | Cat Among the Pigeons | 1959 |
| 29 | The Clocks | 1963 |
| 30 | Third Girl | 1966 |
| 31 | Hallowe'en Party | 1969 |
| 32 | Elephants Can Remember | 1972 |
| 33 | Curtain | 1975 |
Poirot story collections: Poirot Investigates (1924), Murder in the Mews (1937), The Labours of Hercules (1947), The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (1960, which also has one Marple story) and Poirot's Early Cases (1974). A short novel written in 1954, Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly, was finally published in 2014.
The Poirot continuation novels
With the Christie estate's approval, Sophie Hannah has written six new Poirot mysteries: The Monogram Murders (2014), Closed Casket (2016), The Mystery of Three Quarters (2018), The Killings at Kingfisher Hill (2020), Hercule Poirot's Silent Night (2023) and The Last Death of the Year (2025). They are set in Poirot's heyday between the wars and are well liked, but they are not part of Christie's own canon. Read them after you know her Poirot.
Miss Marple Books in Order
The elderly village spinster from St. Mary Mead solves murders by noticing that everyone reminds her of someone she once knew.
| # | Title | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Murder at the Vicarage | 1930 |
| 2 | The Body in the Library | 1942 |
| 3 | The Moving Finger | 1942 |
| 4 | A Murder Is Announced | 1950 |
| 5 | They Do It with Mirrors | 1952 |
| 6 | A Pocket Full of Rye | 1953 |
| 7 | 4.50 from Paddington | 1957 |
| 8 | The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side | 1962 |
| 9 | A Caribbean Mystery | 1964 |
| 10 | At Bertram's Hotel | 1965 |
| 11 | Nemesis | 1971 |
| 12 | Sleeping Murder | 1976 |
Miss Marple actually first appeared in short stories, collected in The Thirteen Problems (1932). Her other collection is Miss Marple's Final Cases (1979). Nemesis follows directly from A Caribbean Mystery, so read those two in order.
Tommy and Tuppence Books in Order
Christie's lightest and most playful series, and the only one where the detectives age in real time: they are in their twenties in the first book and in their seventies in the last.
- The Secret Adversary (1922)
- Partners in Crime (1929) — linked short stories
- N or M? (1941) — spy hunting in wartime
- By the Pricking of My Thumbs (1968)
- Postern of Fate (1973) — the last novel Christie wrote
This is the one series that genuinely benefits from being read in order, because you follow a marriage over fifty years.
Standalones, Superintendent Battle and Colonel Race
Seventeen novels have no Poirot, Marple or Tommy and Tuppence. Several share minor recurring characters.
Superintendent Battle
A stolid Scotland Yard man who also turns up alongside Poirot in Cards on the Table: The Secret of Chimneys (1925), The Seven Dials Mystery (1929), Murder Is Easy (1939, where his role is small) and Towards Zero (1944). Read Chimneys before Seven Dials, since they share characters.
Colonel Race
A secret-service man who appears in The Man in the Brown Suit (1924) and Sparkling Cyanide (1945), and with Poirot in Cards on the Table and Death on the Nile.
Standalones
| Title | Year |
|---|---|
| The Sittaford Mystery | 1931 |
| Why Didn't They Ask Evans? | 1934 |
| And Then There Were None | 1939 |
| Death Comes as the End (set in ancient Egypt) | 1944 |
| Crooked House | 1949 |
| They Came to Baghdad | 1951 |
| Destination Unknown | 1954 |
| Ordeal by Innocence | 1958 |
| The Pale Horse (with Ariadne Oliver) | 1961 |
| Endless Night | 1967 |
| Passenger to Frankfurt | 1970 |
And Then There Were None is the best-selling Christie of all and is often named the best-selling mystery ever written. Christie said Crooked House and Ordeal by Innocence were the two of her books she was most pleased with. The late thrillers, especially Passenger to Frankfurt, are her weakest; leave them for last.
Agatha Christie Short Story Collections in Order
The fourteen British collections, in order: Poirot Investigates (1924), Partners in Crime (1929), The Mysterious Mr Quin (1930), The Thirteen Problems (1932), The Hound of Death (1933), The Listerdale Mystery (1934), Parker Pyne Investigates (1934), Murder in the Mews (1937), The Labours of Hercules (1947), The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (1960), Poirot's Early Cases (1974), Miss Marple's Final Cases (1979), Problem at Pollensa Bay (1991) and While the Light Lasts (1997).
American readers will also meet U.S.-only collections such as The Regatta Mystery, Three Blind Mice, The Under Dog, Double Sin and The Golden Ball. These reshuffle stories found in the British books, so check contents before buying duplicates. The Mysterious Mr Quin, with its half-supernatural Harley Quin, and Parker Pyne Investigates, about a man who fixes unhappiness, are the hidden gems.
Christie also wrote six romantic novels as Mary Westmacott, beginning with Giant's Bread (1930), several plays including The Mousetrap (1952), and An Autobiography, published in 1977.
Reading Age and Content Notes for Christie
Christie is one of the best "first grown-up books" for mystery-loving kids. Violence happens offstage, there is no gore or sex, and the language is clean. Most readers are ready somewhere around ages 12 to 14. Endless Night and And Then There Were None are darker and more frightening than the rest. Our best mystery books for students list shows where Christie fits among other school-age picks, and for readers not quite ready for her, our gentle mystery series for 9-year-olds are a good warm-up.
Parents should know that older editions contain period racial and ethnic slurs and stereotypes. And Then There Were None was first published in Britain under a title using a racial slur and was renamed for its 1940 American edition. Recent printings have been revised to remove some of this language; used older copies have not. Worth a conversation with a young reader.
Poirot and Marple on Screen, From Suchet to Netflix
David Suchet played Poirot in Agatha Christie's Poirot (1989–2013), which adapted every Poirot novel and is the benchmark. Joan Hickson's BBC Miss Marple series (1984–1992) covered all twelve Marple novels. Kenneth Branagh directed and starred in Murder on the Orient Express (2017), Death on the Nile (2022) and A Haunting in Venice (2023), loosely based on Hallowe'en Party. Most recently, Netflix released Agatha Christie's Seven Dials on January 15, 2026, a three-part series with Martin Freeman as Superintendent Battle and Helena Bonham Carter.
Building a Christie Shelf Secondhand
With 66 novels, Christie is made for used-book shopping, and her paperbacks turn up constantly in every era of cover art. See the Agatha Christie books in stock today, or browse the wider mystery shelves and mystery DVDs. Stock is one of a kind and changes daily, and orders over $15 ship free.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Agatha Christie books are there?
She wrote 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections (British editions), plus six Mary Westmacott novels, plays and an autobiography.
How many Poirot books are there?
Christie wrote 33 Poirot novels, plus more than 50 short stories. Sophie Hannah has added six authorized continuation novels since 2014.
How many Miss Marple books are there?
There are 12 Miss Marple novels and 20 short stories, collected in The Thirteen Problems, Miss Marple's Final Cases and elsewhere.
What was Agatha Christie's first book?
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), which introduced Hercule Poirot.
What was Agatha Christie's last book?
Sleeping Murder (1976), published after her death, was the last to appear. The last novel she wrote was Postern of Fate (1973).
Should Curtain be read last?
Yes. Curtain is Poirot's final case and depends on knowing him well. Save it until you have read plenty of Poirot.
Is there a new Agatha Christie adaptation?
Yes. Netflix released Agatha Christie's Seven Dials, a three-part series based on The Seven Dials Mystery, on January 15, 2026.
