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      CONTENTS

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Introduction by Tom Adams

       Preface by Mathew Prichard

       Foreword

      Chapter One

Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       ‘Agatha Christie and The Greenshore Folly’ by John Curran

       About the Author

       Also by Agatha Christie

       About the Publisher

       Introduction by Tom Adams

      MORE THAN half a century ago – 1962 to be precise – my impressively-named and enthusiastic agent, Virgil Pomfret, took me to meet the art director of Fontana Paperbacks, Patsy Cohen. On her desk was a copy of The Collector, John Fowles’ first published novel. It had been commissioned by Tony Colwell, art director at Jonathan Cape, and was my first serious attempt at trompe l’oeil painting for jacket art. It was a good time to be producing art for book covers. Good art was notably lacking in this field, particularly for paperbacks. In fact, the general standard was pretty dire, and the time was ripe for raising the bar. Up to then I had enjoyed doing serious paintings for hardback jackets, which included John Fowles’ The Magus, Patrick White’s Vivisector and David Storey’s Saville. Paperback covers were more often than not the poor second class products of publishers’ lists (with exceptions such as the original typographical Penguin covers), but virtually no serious attempt had been made to commission good art for paperbacks. However with the enthusiastic encouragement of Mark Collins, Virgil Pomfret and Patsy Cohen, I think we succeeded in doing just that.

      From 1962 onwards, my relationship with Agatha Christie developed and prospered as I produced more than a hundred cover paintings for her books over twenty-five years. To begin with I simply enjoyed doing a good job. There were inevitably some failures and I know that I didn’t always please Agatha or her family. I am frequently asked if I met Agatha. I’m afraid the answer is no. Arrangements were made for various meetings; I did meet Rosalind Hicks, her daughter, Edmund Cork, her agent, and other members of her entourage, but Agatha’s legendary reticence and occasional illness prevented her from accepting invitations for us to meet. In retrospect I think it was just as well; it might have been embarrassing for both of us to discuss the likes and dislikes of various cover images. Nevertheless, for me it is a niggling regret. More recently, since my exhibition of Agatha Christie cover paintings at Torquay Museum in 2012, I have on several occasions met Mathew Prichard, a devoted and eloquent advocate of his grandmother’s achievements. Mathew and his wife Lucy have been a tower of strength and gratifyingly appreciative of my work. They helped and encouraged me in my recent endeavours on Agatha’s behalf, in particular while working on the cover painting for Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly, and they arranged with the National Trust to make Greenway House and garden available for my research. Once, after a delightful lunch with Mathew and Lucy at Ferry Cottage, and with my wife, the children’s writer Georgie Adams, we were taken on a memorable boat trip on the River Dart.

      I was delighted when David Brawn, Publisher of Agatha Christie at HarperCollins, asked me to do this special cover painting for a so-far unpublished story. It is a shorter version of the excellent Dead Man’s Folly and a great excuse for me to revisit Greenway. Agatha’s second husband Max Mallowan described Greenway as ‘this little paradise’, and it was for Agatha ‘the loveliest place in the world’. And it is. The handsome, foursquare, no-nonsense Georgian house is in many ways an embodiment of its famous literary owner. But it is the garden that is the true paradise. In my painting I have tried, within the constrictions of being true to the story, to embody its extraordinary beauty and magic. It is without doubt one of the iconic places of the West Country – that West Country with its rain-soaked and occasionally sun-soaked landscape, haunted moors and secret bosky woodlands, fringed by sea and rocky shores.

      Greenway has a flamboyant garden, almost tropical in places and bordered by the Dart, and is now owned by the National Trust. For Agatha it provided a safe retreat from an often intrusive outside world, a world she was fascinated by and acutely observed, but into which she had no wish to be integrated.

      This great detective story writer, this skilled puzzle and plot maker, was the inspiration for my work on her books. My painting for this story is a tribute to her house and garden but, nevertheless, it had to fulfil its function as an illustration.

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