North Carolina
Agatha Christie, Classic Film Mysteries & Sherlock Holmes’ Legacy
Program No. 22387RJ
Delve into a week of mystery at Montreat Conference Center as you discover the secrets of the lives and works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Alfred Hitchcock and more.
Enroll with Confidence
We want your Road Scholar learning adventure to be something to look forward to—not worry about. Learn more
Protecting the Environment
We offset a portion of the emissions created by your travel. Learn more
At a Glance
Beneath Graybeard Mountain in western North Carolina, surrounded by 4,000 acres of hardwood and laurel forests, Montreat Conference Center is a mountain retreat in a tranquil setting ideal for pursuing matters of the mind. Make your way to this peaceful hideaway and lodge at its recently renovated, stone-built Assembly Inn as you delve into a fascinating, all-mystery program covering the life of Agatha Christie, classic mysteries from the Silver Screen and the legacy of Sherlock Holmes.
Activity Level
Easy Going
All facilities are in one building, with approximately 300 yards walking required; a few stairs. Outside areas are mountainous, with inclines and uneven terrain.
Best of all, you’ll…
- Explore the world of Dame Agatha Christie and discover what she enjoyed and endured during an extraordinary life with enough twists and turns to rival any of her cast of characters.
- Look back on the mystery movie repertoire and analyze the well-crafted plots, heady suspense and thematic variety of great films made by the likes of Barbara Stanwyck and Alfred Hitchcock.
- Crack the case with the most famous detective in literature — Sherlock Holmes — and examine the wondrous imagination that created him, that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
General Notes
The Retreat Difference: This unique, often basic and no-frills experience at a Road Scholar Retreat includes opportunities for early morning exercise, interaction with the local community for insight into local life, an authentic farm-to-table or locally sourced meal, a live performance or event and a value-priced single room. Opportunities are available for traveling companions to attend a different program at Montreat during the same week.
Featured Expert
All trip experts
Barbara Pell
Bobbie Pell, the "Moonstone Minstrel," has been telling stories and writing fiction/poetry for over 30 years. She is a lifelong lover of story who incorporates folklore, myth and faerie lore into her writing, workshops/courses, and storytelling performances. She holds master's degrees in library science/technology and English literature/composition, and an MFA in creative writing. This modern-day minstrel unites song and story in delightful images and universal themes. She lives on Avalon Ridge with her husband Ron and their many golden retrievers.
Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.
Barbara Pell
View biography
Bobbie Pell, the "Moonstone Minstrel," has been telling stories and writing fiction/poetry for over 30 years. She is a lifelong lover of story who incorporates folklore, myth and faerie lore into her writing, workshops/courses, and storytelling performances. She holds master's degrees in library science/technology and English literature/composition, and an MFA in creative writing. This modern-day minstrel unites song and story in delightful images and universal themes. She lives on Avalon Ridge with her husband Ron and their many golden retrievers.
Tracy Bailey
View biography
Tracy has been on the program staff of Montreat Conference Center since 1986. She began working with Elderhostel programs in 1989, and in 1997 assumed the additional role of on-site coordinator. A native of the area, she graduated from Asheville-Buncombe Technical College in 1981. Her favorite hobbies are hiking, pottery and reading. Tracy married Sam in 2007, and added three daughters to her family. In addition to her own grown children, she and Sam have been foster parents since 2010. They have four grandchildren.
Suggested Reading List
(8 books)
Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop
You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.
Agatha Christie, Classic Film Mysteries & Sherlock Holmes’ Legacy
Program Number: 22387
Come, Tell Me How You Live: An Archaeological Memoir
Over the course of her long, prolific career, Agatha Christie gave the world a wealth of ingenious whodunits and page-turning locked-room mysteries featuring Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, and a host of other unforgettable characters. She also gave us Come, Tell Me How You Live, a charming, fascinating, and wonderfully witty nonfiction account of her days on an archaeological dig in Syria with her husband, renowned archeologist Max Mallowan. Something completely different from arguably the best-selling author of all time, Come, Tell Me How You Live is an evocative journey to the fascinating Middle East of the 1930s that is sure to delight Dame Agatha’s millions of fans, as well as aficionados of Elizabeth Peters’s Amelia Peabody mysteries and eager armchair travelers everywhere.
Tales of Terror: 58 Short Stories by the Master of Suspense
Be afraid—be very afraid: the master of suspense is serving up 58 bloodcurdling tales for your delectation. These suspenseful stories all appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and in the words of Hitch himself, they “are guaranteed to chill and unnerve.” Bill Pronzini contributes “The Arrowmont Prison Riddle,” Margaret B. Maron has “A Very Special Talent,” Barry M. Malzberg offers “A Home Away from Home,” and Patricia Matthews chronicles “The Fall of Dr. Scourby.” Meet a girl who stalks Jack the Ripper, a clairvoyant writer of newspaper obituaries, a homicidal partygoer in a sanatorium, and a police detective who lives vicariously through the exploits of one of his most notorious suspects: they all populate these frightening pages. Caution: not recommended for late-night reading—except for the very brave!
Agatha Christie
A passionate and accomplished writer, Laura Thompson now turns her highly acclaimed biographical skills to Agatha Christie. Arguably the greatest crime writer in the world, thirty years after her death Christie's books still sell over four million copies worldwide a year.
Thompson describes the Edwardian world in which she grew up, explores the relationships she had, including those with her two husbands and daughter, and investigates the mysteries still surrounding Christie's life - including her disappearance in 1926.
Agatha Christie is a mystery and writing about her is a detection job in itself. But, with access to all of Christie's letters, papers and writing notebooks, as well as interviews with her grandson, daughter, son-in-law and their living relations, Thompson is able to unravel not only the detailed workings of Christies detective fiction, but the truth behind her private life as well.
The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of his Motion Pictures
This completely revised and updated edition of the classic text describes and analyzes every movie made by master filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock.
The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Biography).
Though Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's name is recognized the world over, for decades the man himself has been overshadowed by his better understood creation, Sherlock Holmes, who has become one of literature's most enduring characters. Based on thousands of previously unavailable documents, Andrew Lycett, author of the critically acclaimed biography Dylan Thomas, offers the first definitive biography of the baffling Conan Doyle, finally making sense of a long-standing mystery: how the scientifically minded creator of the world's most rational detective himself succumbed to an avid belief in spiritualism, including communication with the dead.
Conan Doyle was a man of many contradictions. Always romantic, energetic, idealistic and upstanding, he could also be selfish and fool-hardy. Lycett assembles the many threads of Conan Doyle's life, including the lasting impact of his domineering mother and his wayward, alcoholic father; his affair with a younger woman while his wife lay dying; and his nearly fanatical pursuit of scientific data to prove and explain various supernatural phenomena. Lycett reveals the evolution of Conan Doyle's nature and ideas against the backdrop of his intense personal life, wider society and the intellectual ferment of his age. In response to the dramatic scientific and social transformations at the turn of the century, he rejected traditional religious faith in favor of psychics and séances -- and in this way he embodied all of his late-Victorian, early-Edwardian era's ambivalence about the advance of science and the decline of religion.
The first biographer to gain access to Conan Doyle's newly released personal archive -- which includes correspondence, diaries, original manuscripts and more -- Lycett combines assiduous research with penetrating insight to offer the most comprehensive, lucid and sympathetic portrait yet of Conan Doyle's personal journey from student to doctor, from world-famous author to ardent spiritualist.
The Complete Collection of Sherlock Holmes.
An Autobiography
Back in print in an all-new edition, is the engaging and illuminating chronicle of the life of the “Queen of Mystery.” Fans of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple and readers of John Curran’s fascinating biographies Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks and Murder in the Making will be spellbound by the compelling, authoritative account of one of the world’s most influential and fascinating novelists, told in her own words and inimitable style. The New York Times Book Review calls Christie’s autobiography a “joyful adventure,” saying, “she brings the sense of wonder...to her extraordinary career.”
The Grand Tour: Around the World with the Queen of Mystery
Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Now, in this fascinating travelogue of the prolific author's yearlong trip around the British Empire in 1922, Christie provides the clues to the origins of the plots and locales of some of her bestselling mystery novels. Containing never-before-published letters and photos from her travels, and filled with intriguing details about the exotic locations she visited, The Grand Tour is an important book for Agatha Christie fans, revealing an unexpected side to the world's most renowned mystery writer. Mathew is her grandson.