Curtain
agatha christie
Hardcover
(New York : Dodd, Mead, March 15, 1975)
The novel features Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings in their final appearances in Christie's works (see below). Christie wrote the novel in the early 1940s, during World War II. Partly fearing for her own survival, and partly wanting to have a fitting end to Poirot's series of novels, Christie had the novel locked away in a bank vault for over thirty years. The final Poirot novel that Christie wrote, Elephants Can Remember, was published in 1972, followed by Christie's last novel, Postern of Fate. Knowing that she could no longer write any novels, the elderly Christie authorized Curtain's removal from the vault and subsequent publication. It was the last of her books to be published during her lifetime.