The Unexpected Guest

By Agatha Christie

A young man, broken down in the fog, witnesses a murder he is asked to conceal… A full-length novel adapted by Charles Osborne from Agatha Christie’s acclaimed play.

When a stranger runs his car into a ditch in dense fog in South Wales and makes his way to an isolated house, he discovers a woman standing over the dead body of her wheelchair-bound husband, gun in her hand. She admits to murder, and the unexpected guest offers to help her concoct a cover story.

But is it possible that Laura Warwick did not commit the murder after all? If so, who is she shielding? The victim’s young half-brother or his dying matriarchal mother? Laura’s lover? Perhaps the father of the little boy killed in an accident for which Warwick was responsible? The house seems full of possible suspects…

THE UNEXPECTED GUEST is considered to be one of the finest of Christie’s plays. Hailed as ‘another Mousetrap’ when it opened on 12 August 1958 in the West End, it ran for 604 performances over the succeeding 18 months and has been staged many times around the world over the last 40 years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Oct 14, 2010
• ISBN: 9780007423033

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in over 70 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 20 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.

Reviews for The Unexpected Guest

[john257hopper · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a 1999 novelisation of an original Agatha Christie play first performed in 1958. It enjoyed considerable success, notching up 600 performances over the next 18 months, clearly dwarfed even then by the success of The Mousetrap, which had already been running 6 years, but a good record in its own right. This play is in fact very similar to the Mousetrap in its construction and atmosphere, and on the face of it, it's difficult to see why this did not run on and on like its more famous predecessor (whose 27,818th performance I watched two days ago). This novelisation is a very straightforward adaptation of the play, with no extra scenes or lines or characters, so it reads as a bit stilted and restricted in places, but it turns into a good read with the usual plethora of red herrings and twists. I'd watch a performance of it if it came round.

[dorritt_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In the middle of a foggy country night, a stranger crashes his car into a ditch and stumbles into the drawing room of a nearby house seeking help - only to discover a murdered man in one corner of the dark room, his professed murderer in the other. This scene launches The Unexpected Guest, a novelization of what was apparently a fairly successful stage play by Agatha Christie. Not sure how much Charles Osborne got for turning it into a novel but hope it wasn't much, because it isn't apparent that he's added much value. Characters pop in and out of doors just when they're wanted, there's no interaction that isn't directly related to the plot, and the whole thing is entirely dialog driven. You can practically read the set directions embedded in the connecting sentences, but if you're craving additional detail with respect to clothing, furniture, weather, or anything else visual, you're out of luck. I suspect most people who saw this as a play guessed the murderer by the second act. Certainly anyone reading this adaptation won't be long fooled. Had this been intended for bookstores rather than the stage, I suspect Dame Agatha would have taken the time to add more characters, more entanglements, and a lot more red herrings. But it's a quick read, and you could argue that some of the charm arises from imagining yourself garbed in a dapper wool suit or glamorous evening dress, seated on a velvet-upholstered cushion in a be-gilded and be-marbled MCM theater as the curtain sweeps open and there's a collective gasp! as the lights gradually rise to reveal the sight of the late, unlamented Richard Warwick, lying slumped in his wheelchair with a decorous bullet hole through his skull.

[candacevan_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This isn't really a brand new mystery novel by Agatha Christie. Instead its a novelization, by Christie biographer Charles Osborne, of a stage play by Agatha Christie. Reviews suggested that Osborne did a better job than I thought he did. It's okay, but it's very obvious that it was a play. I would describe it as "thinly novelized." Still, for those who are fans of Agatha Christie, this is a real discovery. Enjoy.

[cassandra2020 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not a particularly challenging read - finshed in a day.

Obviously written as a stage play and has been 'novelised' by another author. As I read it, I could see the staging and imagine the set: drawing room with French Windows, garden just seen in the distance, characters wandering in and out of the set/room/plot. Interesting plot, but fairly easy to see where it was going. I think it's failings (if you can call them that) would not have been there had Agatha Christie adapted the play herself - the clues were too obviously signposted for a reader. (well for this reader anyway).

Suspect it works better as a play than a novel.

[victorianrose869 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

December 14,1999The Unexpected GuestAgatha Christie (Charles Osborne)Apparently, Osborne – who may be a relative of Christie’s; I’m not sure – has been commissioned to put some of Christie’s most famous plays into novel form, and this is one of those, just recently released.Although Osborne takes absolutely no individual license of his own and is almost annoyingly rote and mechanical in his delivery so as not to deviate one iota from Christie’s version of the story, I quite liked it – all the more for its often dry recitation of the play, action for action, word for word. It strips away the excess and gives a near-perfect visual of the mystery at its most pure. I can see the characters so clearly.It’s the middle of the night in rural Scotland, and a man has wrecked his car on a dark, country road. He goes to the nearest house for help (a vintage Christie English country manor, of course!). When he gets there, he finds a man in a wheelchair, dead. Shot. Nearby stands a woman with a gun. It appears that a wife has just shot her handicapped husband. Although Michael (he of the wrecked car) doesn’t know the woman, he decides to help her cover up her crime since she believes she was driven to it out of frustration.Of course, nothing – and I do mean NOTHING – is what it seems. Just when you think you’ve figured it out, another surprise comes careening around the corner.I like it even more than some of Christie’s own novels, if truth be told. It was less complex, and that’s how I like it! Don’t want to have to work my brain too hard! I’ll definitely read it again, I think. Glad I got it in hardcover.

[sgerbic · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Reviewed Oct 2000 Wow really bad! I thought that “Black Coffee” was horrible this is right up there. A man walks into a room with a woman holding a gun and a murdered man sitting in a wheelchair. The unexpected guest falls in love with this woman and conceals the crime. Either the play/novel is very badly written or the guest is not who he claims to be and actually committed the crime himself. It seems that Mr. Osborne has adapted another Christie play, “Spider’s Web” I know I’ll read it, but through clenched teeth.

[bookangel_a · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had just finished reading Black Coffee which is a similar adaptation by this author, and this one was SO much better! It had a great plot with attention getting plot twists. I did manage to guess one or two of the plot twists, but it's only because I'm getting familiar with Christie's style. I really enjoyed this one. It did NOT give away the killer the way Black Coffee did, which is always important to me. It made me think. No Poirot or Marple in this one, but it didn't need that to be absorbing.