The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
This novel was much admired by her future mother-in-law, Mrs Marguerite Mallowan, who penned a note in a leather-bound copy she commissioned of this book together with "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" and "The Hollow". The note read "Passing a bookshop while I was in Paris in 1932, I bought "The Secret of Chimneys", now almost unobtainable. I had just heard of Agatha Christie. Though not a reader of detective stories, her book captivated me so much that I never left it until I had finished it. Soon after she married my son, whom she had met in Mesopotamia while he was working under Sir Leonard Woolley. Later I read "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" which, I think, made her reputation universal. Lastly came "The Hollow", a book dear to me as revealing her artistic, simple and sincere temperament. This is the reason for my choice of these three books to be bound together. I wish them to be a testimony of my admiration for her art, and above all, of my gratitude for her loving kindness through all the years I have known her". The copy of the book was sold at auction in September 2006.