In his latest Takimag article, Theodore Dalrymple recounts lying in bed one morning, absorbed in an Agatha Christie mystery, as he battles a persistently obnoxious fly.

In fact, a publisher once asked me to write a book about Mrs. Christie’s philosophical, social, and psychological ideas. The prospect tempted me because I could lie abed all day reading her and imagine that I was working. I also had a grand theory to propound, namely that Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple were actually themselves serial killers.