Agatha Christie Before marrying and starting a family in London, she had served in a Devon hospital during the First World War, tending to troops coming back from the trenches. She was initially an unsuccessful writer with six consecutive rejections, but this changed when "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", featuring Hercule Poirot, was published in 1920. During the Second World War, she worked as a pharmacy assistant at University College Hospital, London, acquiring a good knowledge of poisons which feature in many of her novels. "Guinness World Records" lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly
Ariadne Oliver Discontented Soldier", she was portrayed by Lally Bowers. A 1986 adaptation of "Dead Man's Folly" starred Jean Stapleton as Ariadne Oliver, opposite Peter Ustinov as Poirot. Zoë Wanamaker has played Ariadne Oliver in six television episodes of the series "Agatha Christie's Poirot", starring David Suchet as Hercule Poirot. In the last shot episode of the series (but not the finale), Mrs Oliver—a combination of Agatha Christie/Miss Marple—is helpful to Poirot in an adaptation of "Dead Man's Folly", which was filmed on the Christie Estate. In the BBC Radio 4 plays, Ariadne Oliver has been played by Stephanie Cole ("Cards on