The Murder on the Links is a work by the female writer Agatha Christie, she is the detective genre’s best-selling writer of all time, and second only if other genres are included (only behind William Shakespeare). It is estimated that about 1 billion copies in English and about 1 billion copies in 103 other languages of Christie’s works have been sold. An example of the appeal of Agatha Christie’s works abroad is that she is also the best-selling author of all time in France with 40 million copies sold in French (as of 2003), while the second place is French writer Emile Zola with only 22 million copies.