Agatha Christie was a novelist that wrote about crime.
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie , Lady Mallowan , DBE ( née Miller ; 15 September 1890 -- 12 January 1976 ) was an English crime novelist , short story writer and playwright . Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalises crimes , their detection , criminals , and their motives . Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective -- either professional or amateur -- investigates a crime , often murder . A novelist is an author or writer of novels , though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction .