Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890 and became, quite simply, the bestselling novelist in history. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written towards the end of the First World War, introduced us to Hercule Poirot, who was to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes. She is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in over 100 foreign countries. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays, and six novels under the name of Mary Westmacott. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in June 1926. In the story Poirot retires to a village near the home of a friend, Roger Ackroyd, to pursue a project to perfect vegetable marrows. Soon after, Ackroyd is murdered and Poirot must come out of retirement to solve the case. The novel was well-received from its first publication. In 2013, the British Crime Writers? Association voted it the best crime novel ever.