Legendary drama professor, esteemed historian, celebrated director, and multiple award-winning writer Amnon Kabatchnik has penned a new volume in his critically-acclaimed award-winning reference series. Kabatchnik’s latest, Murder in the West End: The Plays of Agatha Christie and Her Disciples, Volume 1 (BearManor Media) is now available wherever fine books are sold in hardcover, and trade paper editions.
In this latest installment in his acclaimed reference series, esteemed historian Amnon Kabatchnik delves into the works of the “Queen of Crime” Agatha Christie, and her disciples. It is widely perceived that only the Bible and the plays of Shakespeare have sold more copies than Agatha Christie’s whodunits. Of Christie’s fifteen stage thrillers, the most notable are Ten Little Indians, Witness for the Prosecution and The Mousetrap, which opened in 1952 and holds the distinction of being the longest-running play in the West End.
In his extraordinary new book, Murder in the West End, Kabatchnik notes that during the first two decades of the twentieth century, only a few criminous plays premiered in London’s West End: The Tragedy of Nan (1908), by John Masefield, A.E.W. Mason’s The Witness for the Defense (1911), The Case of Lady Camber (1915), by Horace Annesley Vachell, George Playdell’s The Ware Case (1915), The Secret Woman (1920), by Eden Phillpotts, and Bulldog Drummond (1921), by “Sapper” and Gerald Du Maurier. Then came Edgar Wallace, a prolific writer of thrillers. The first to make a specialty of detective drama, Wallace’s plays included The Ringer, On the Spot, and The Case of the Frightened Lady.
Murder in the West End examines the plays of Edgar Wallace and Agatha Christie, and more than 65 plays of menace and crime that premiered in the West End, including works by W. Somerset Maugham, A.A. Milne, J. B. Priestley, Daphne Du Maurier, Terrence Rattigan, Aldous Huxley, John Osborne, Graham Greene, and Jeffrey Archer. The book’s entries are presented chronologically and include a plot synopsis, production data, opinions by critics and scholars, as well as biographical sketches of playwrights and key actors-directors.
Kabatchnik has earned high critical acclaim for his previous works, which won honors in the Benjamin Franklin Awards, the ForeWord Book of the Year Awards, and the Independent Book Publishers Award.
Amnon Kabatchnik, now retired, was a professor of theater at SUNY Binghamton, Stanford University, Ohio State University, Florida State University, and Elmira College. Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, Amnon Kabatchnik received his BS degree in theatre and journalism from Boston University where he graduated summa cum laude, and won the Rodgers & Hammerstein Award. Kabatchnik also holds an MFA degree in directing from the Yale School of Drama. He directed numerous dramas, comedies, thrillers, and musicals in New York and across the United States. He is the author of Sherlock Holmes on the Stage, the seven-volume series Blood on the Stage, Horror on the Stage, and Courtroom Dramas on the Stage, Volumes I and II. Visit Amnon Kabatchnik online at: www.amnonkabatchnik.com
Founded in 2001 and based in Florida, BearManor Media is a leading independent publisher focused on publishing books about Movies, Television, Old Time Radio, Theater, Animation, Circus Performing Arts and previously unpublished scripts. Visit BearManor Media online at: www.bearmanormedia.com. Members of the news media wishing to request more information about Amnon Kabatchnik or Murder in the West End are kindly asked to contact Maryglenn M. Warnock – maryglenn@maryglenn.com
