Poirot to join computer generation

The Agatha Christie industry, hitherto sustained by TV adaptations and multimillion-pound paperback sales, is to enter the 21st century with a series of computer games based on her whodunnits.

An interactive game for cable television based onDeath on the Nile is also in development.

The updates come as part of a re-branding drive to turn the old-fashioned English storyteller into a modern queen of crime.

The move has been sanctioned by the Christie family and is being pursued by the company Chorion, now a majority stakeholder in Agatha Christie Ltd.

The plan includes updated covers for paperbacks and sexier television versions.

But it is computerised Christie which the family and Chorion hopes will attract a new generation to her works - and new audiences, such as women, to PC and TV games.

Four new television versions are being planned of the classic Hercule Poirot stories. There are also plans for a new Miss Marple, with the sleuth played by a younger actress than former incarnations.