Spider's Web (novel)

Spider's Web is a novelization by Charles Osborne of the 1954 play of the same name by crime fiction writer Agatha Christie and was first published in the UK by HarperCollins in September 2000 and on November 11, 2000 in the US by St. Martin's Press.

The book was written following the successful publication of the novelizations of the 1930 play Black Coffee in 1998 and the 1958 play The Unexpected Guest in 1999. Like those books, the novelization is a straightforward transfer of the stage lines and directions of Christie's script into a written narrative. Osborne chose not to add characters, lines or scenes which would alter in any substantial way what had been presented on the stage although minor amendments were made to produce suitable chapter endings.

Osborne contributed a section to the book on the history of Christie's plays.

Plot

Clarissa Hailsham-Brown, the wife of a foreign office diplomat finds herself having to deceive the police when she finds the dead body of a blackmailer in the drawing room of her house in Kent. Her teenage stepdaughter confesses to the crime and she utilises all of her wits and charm to inveigle her house guests into helping protect her, but the police eventually get at the unexpected truth.