Review by Anupriya Sisodia of "The Life and Times of Agatha Christie" at Literary Leicester Festival 2026

I wasn’t entirely sure what I was walking into when I signed up for Literary Leicester 2026. It was my first ever literary festival, but I knew it would be something I’d remember.  

Wednesday 18th March began with "The Life and Times of Agatha Christie" in the Attenborough Arts Centre. I remember noticing how carefully I was taking everything in. Even before it started, the room already had its own atmosphere. It was full in that warm, expectant way: people gathering in clusters, coats coming off, festival pamphlets being flicked through, that quiet pre-event energy where everyone is just waiting for it to begin. And I even saw someone dressed as Hercule Poirot, moustache and all, which made me smile before I could even stop myself. Poirot, one of my earliest literary fascinations, was the kind of character I grew up thinking of as untouchable in his brilliance, so seeing him casually walking through a modern arts centre struck me as surreal in the best way.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Agatha Christie. I started reading her books when I was around twelve or thirteen. I didn’t realize then how long they would stay with me, quietly threading themselves into how I understand narrative, suspense, and character, or that I’d end up in a different country years later, listening to someone unpack her life in front of an audience. 

Dr Mark Aldridge led the talk. The way he spoke about Christie felt grounded and engaging rather than distant or overly academic. He walked us through her life as if her story still pulsed with warmth and movement. I realized I was listening more than writing; my notes turned into scattered fragments. When I listen, my attention naturally shifts to thought, and my imagination crafts its own scenes alongside what I’m hearing.

At one point, he mentioned The Mousetrap and its extraordinarily long-running history since 1952. Immediately, my mind connected it to home: I thought of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, a popular Bollywood film that has been showing for decades at Maratha Mandir in Mumbai, India. Two very different stories, two very different worlds, yet both enduring, because people keep returning to them, generation after generation. It seemed like one of those cultural overlaps your mind makes without asking permission, where distance doesn’t matter as much as shared longevity, shared affection. I didn’t say any of it out loud, obviously. I just let the thought sit there for a moment, like a small bridge between places I carry in me.

The Q&A session carried a particular sense of meaning. People were asking questions with such care, such curiosity, as if they weren’t just seeking answers but trying to understand the texture of Christie’s legacy from different angles: her narrative arc, structure, the psychology behind her characters. There was something very communal about it, not performative, but shared. Like everyone in the room was gently adding to the same unfolding conversation.

By the time the session ended, I felt something subtle settle in. Christie’s work lives on not just because people read it, but because it is constantly re-entered and re-imagined. Each reader brings something new to it, and in doing so, keeps it moving forward. I left carrying that thought: stories don’t belong only to the past or the page. They find new rooms, over and over, just like this one.

About the reviewer
Anupriya Sisodia is a published romance fiction author, pursuing an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester. She is an avid reader who loves writing stories with realistic, relatable characters who experience emotional and exciting journeys on their way to a happy ending.

Review by Jon Wilkins of "The Christie Affair" by Nina de Gramont

I don’t know how many people are familiar with the great event of December 1926 when Agatha Christie disappeared, feared kidnapped or worse, dead, only to be found days later in a spa hotel in Harrogate.

Many convincing explanations of the affair have been played out; that she had a nervous breakdown after learning of her husband Archie's affair and the recent death of her mother, that she was perpetuating a giant publicity stunt or that she had simply lost her memory. Many books have been written about the occasion, but none as fascinating as this,

The Christie Affair is a wonderfully written novel with so many layers interwoven into it that it is a joy to read. The main thread, an unrelentingly painful love affair, dominates, but with consequences that we could never imagine or in truth, understand.

The sights and sounds of 1920s London, Torquay and Harrogate are described evocatively and one can get lost in the descriptions as the hunt wears on. The police were desperate and it became the greatest manhunt ever known in the UK. 

Now I’ve finished I wish I had read it more slowly but that would have been impossible as the various plot lines encourage the reader to turn page after page enthralled by the journey they are taken on. The author cleverly intermingles fact with fiction, but who would have guessed that her imagination would have taken her from the battlefields of World War I to the strict convents in Ireland and to the machinations of the police, the press and the woefully inadequate Archie Christie, who comes out of the story very badly.

There is a large cast of characters; each plays their part in a tale of murder and revenge that is so plausible, each given just enough space on the page to see them with credibility, not as some extra with a small role. Each character is vital to the plot and all is concisely explained at the denouement. 

The story is beautifully written. We are taken hold of and gripped until the very end. We know what we want the outcome to be and are then shocked when the writer's truth is told. The writer: is it her words or did this happen? It is described as a piece of fiction, but then … who knows? Perhaps it is true.

Do read this and make your own mind up. I think I will read it again, just to make sure.

About the reviewer
Jon Wilkins is 67. He is married to the gorgeous Annie with two wonderful sons. He was a teacher for twenty years, a Waterstones bookseller and coached women’s basketball for over thirty years before taking up writing seriously. Nowadays he takes notes for students with Special Needs at Leicester University. He has had a work commissioned by the UK Arts Council and several pieces published traditionally as well as on-line. He has had poems in magazines and anthologies, art galleries, studios, museums and at Huddersfield Railway Station. He loves writing poetry. For his MA, he wrote a crime novel, Utrecht Snow. He followed it up with Utrecht Rain, and is now writing a third part. He is currently writing a crime series, Poppy Knows Best, set at the end of the Great War and into the early 1920s. Next year he takes up the UEA Crime Fiction Creative Writing MA. The game's afoot! 

You can read more about Utrecht Snow on Creative Writing at Leicester here.