论侦探小说中的侦探话语的谎言测定(2)
During the First World War, she was part of the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) who provided nursing services. She worked at a hospital in Torquay as a nurse; she liked the profession, calling it “one of the most rewarding professions that anyone can follow” (Agatha, 1993: 230). Also as part of the VAD, she later worked at a hospital pharmacy, a job that influenced her work, as many of the murders in her books are carried out with poison.
Despite a turbulent courtship, on Christmas Eve 1914 Agatha married Archibald Christie, an aviator in the Royal Flying Corps (Agatha, 1993: 215,237). The couple had one daughter, Rosalind Hicks. Agatha's first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published in 1920. When Archie was offered a job organizing a world tour to promote the British Empire Exhibition the couple left their daughter with Agatha's mother and sister and travelled to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii(The Guardian,2011).
In 1930, Christie married archaeologist Max Mallowan (Sir Max from 1968) after joining him in an archaeological dig. Their marriage was especially happy in the early years and remained so until Christie's death in 1976(Laura, 2008). Max introduced her to various wines (“But you never drink ... Heaven knows, I’ve tried hard enough with you”), but acknowledged defeat, and had the battle of obtaining water for her in restaurants. She also tried unsuccessfully to make herself like cigarettes by smoking one after lunch and one after dinner every day for six months (Agatha, 1983: 45-46).
Christie frequently used settings which were familiar to her for her stories. Christie's travels with Mallowan contributed background to several of her novels set in the Middle East. Other novels (such as And Then There Were None) were set in and around Torquay, where she was born. Christie's 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express was written in the Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, the southern terminus of the railway. The hotel maintains Christie's room as a memorial to the author.