John Steinbeck in 1939 Born

Critical reception and legacy[edit]

Memorial to Christie in central London

Christie is regularly referred to as the "Queen of Crime" or "Queen of Mystery", and is considered a master of suspense, plotting, and characterisation.^{[138][139][140]} In 1955, she became the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award.^[135] She was named "Best Writer of the Century" and the Hercule Poirot series of books was named "Best Series of the Century" at the 2000 Bouchercon World Mystery Convention.^[141] In 2013, she was voted "best crime writer" in a survey of 600 members of the Crime Writers' Association of professional novelists.^[123] The writer Raymond Chandler criticised the artificiality of her books, as did Symons.^{[142][112]:100–30} The literary critic Edmund Wilson described her prose as banal and her characterisations as superficial.^[143][j]

"With Christie ... we are dealing not so much with a literary figure as with a broad cultural phenomenon, like Barbie or the Beatles."

—Joan Acocella writing in The New Yorker.^[146]

In 2011 Christie was named the second most financially successful crime writer of all time in the United Kingdom, after Ian Fleming, by digital crime drama TV channel Alibi with total earnings around £100 million.^[147] In 2012, Christie was among the people selected by the artist Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous work, the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover, "to celebrate the British cultural figures he most admires".^[148][149]

In 2015, in honour of the 125th anniversary of her birth, 25 contemporary mystery writers and one publisher gave their views on Christie's works. Many of the authors had read Christie's novels first, before other mystery writers, in English or in their native language, influencing their own writing, and nearly all still viewed her as the "Queen of Crime" and creator of the plot twists used by mystery authors. Nearly all had one or more favourites among Christie's mysteries and found her books still good to read nearly 100 years after her first novel was published. Just one of the 25 authors held with Wilson's views.^[150]

In 2016, one hundred years after Christie wrote her first detective story, the Royal Mail released six stamps in her honour, featuring The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Murder on the Orient Express, And Then There Were None, The Body in the Library, and A Murder is Announced. The Guardian reported that, "Each design incorporates microtext, UV ink and thermochromic ink. These concealed clues can be revealed using either a magnifying glass, UV light or body heat and provide pointers to the mysteries' solutions."^[151][152] Her characters and her face appeared on the stamps of many countries like Dominica and the Somali Republic.^[153] In 2020, Christie was commemorated on a £2 coin by the Royal Mint for the first time to mark the centenary of her first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles.^[154]