How cozy are Agatha Christie's novels? They may seem to depict a stable world of respect for tradition, shared culture, settled gender and class roles, political conservatism and unambiguous morality, in which reason suffices to control disorder. But this world is threatened by modernity and uncertainty: war, social mobility, extremist politics, moral liberalization. Prominent citizens may be criminals, detectives are not wholly unlike murderers, social life is largely theatrical, and violence can bring about harmony.