Agatha Christie’s Marple: Mark Aldridge with Jan Carson

Drawing on a range of material, some of which is newly discovered and previously unpublished, join Mark Aldridge as he discusses his new book Agatha Christie’s Marple: Expert on Wickedness (HarperCollins, 2024) with avid Marple fan Jan Carson. 

We invite you to piece together the evidence of the world's favourite female detective - and uncover the truth behind the beloved Mother of Crime's appearance on page, stage, screen and beyond.

Dr Mark Aldridge is an Agatha Christie historian and speaker. His books include Agatha Christie's Marple: Expert on Wickedness (HarperCollins, 2024), Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World (HarperCollins, 2020) and Agatha Christie on Screen (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). He is a regular contributor to documentaries and festivals, discussing Agatha Christie and crime fiction. He also co-hosts and co-produces the podcast The Swinging Christies with writer Gray Robert Brown. Mark is Associate Professor of Screen Histories at Solent University, Southampton. Beyond Agatha Christie, his main research interests concern British television history and drama. 

Jan Carson is a writer based in Belfast. She has published three novels, three short story collections and two micro-fiction collections. Her novel The Fire Starters won the EU Prize for Literature for Ireland 2019. Jan’s latest novel, The Raptures was published by Doubleday in early 2022 and was subsequently shortlisted for the An Post Irish Novel of the Year and Kerry Group Novel of the Year. Her short story collection Quickly, While They Still Have Horses was published by Doubleday (UK) in April 2024 and Scribner (US) in July 2024. Her writing has been aired on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and RTE. She is the Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast 2025 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her first stage play, an adaptation of the children’s classic, The Velveteen Rabbit, was produced by Replay Theatre Company at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in 2025. Her next novel, Few and Far Between, is forthcoming in early 2026.