Since November 18 of last year a new bronze sculpture has occupied a spot at the end of Cranbourn St in London’s West End – a monument to Agatha Christie.

It stands at 2.5 metres high and has the sideways profile of a book, with a cut-out oval section at the centre which features a bust of Christie in profile. It is also studded with effigies of her most popular characters and scenes from her novels – Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple and the Orient Express all appear.

The sculpture’s book form was chosen both to represent her achievements as one of the 20th century’s most celebrated novelists and also as a reference to the West End’s longest running play, The Mousetrap, which is based on a short story that she penned some time during the late nineteen forties. The unveiling happened to take place on the 60th Anniversary of the play’s continuous London run…

It’s not the most attractive thing I’ve ever seen, but then I suppose they wanted to capture Agatha Christie at the height of her powers – she was still producing a new novel almost every year into her eighties, having first written her first novel some fifty three years before.