Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman (2022) by British historian Lucy Worsley is a portrait of the famous crime writer’s life.

Included in the biography is something of the story of Agatha Christie’s mother who was in kinship care as a child.

After her grandfather died, Christie’s grandmother was struggling to raise her children on an army pension.

So, writes Worsley, rather than have her family lose their “middle-class status” she “sent the nine-year old Clara to live with her sister Margaret” (Worsley, 11).

Worsley goes on to say that Clara never forgot that her mother gave her away and the knowledge impacted negatively on her wellbeing and the way she raised Agatha.