Agatha Christie Meets Sharp Objects In Netflix’s R-Rated 6-Part Detective Drama

Published Aug 28, 2026, 10:00 AM EDT Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020. While almost every murder mystery story exists on a tonal continuum between Sharp Objects and Agatha Christie’s books, one recent Netflix hit managed the unenviable task of combining these two very different styles into a single successful series. Agatha Christie is the spiritual mother of murder mystery novels, despite the fact that Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories predate her novels. Although the Sherlock Holmes stories pioneered the basic detective story setup, most of the tropes closely associated with murder mysteries specifically came from the books written by Christie and her imitators. The familiar and welcome clichés that define the murder mystery genre, from the unlikely, quirky amateur sleuth to the ominous, often isolated setting to the diverse array of colorful characters, all of whom have a motive, can be traced back to the prolific Christie’s output. While there are some anomalies in Christie’s canon, like 1939’s twisted, brutal And Then There Were None, for the most part, her novels helped cement the murder mystery’s status as a fun, light-hearted cultural institution. Before shows like HBO’s True Detective offered viewers brooding, gritty takes on the murder mystery genre, Christie’s iconic characters Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot made solving homicides into light-hearted, largely PG-rated fun for the whole family. Even though HBO’s hit Sharp Objects sits firmly on the murder mystery genre’s darker side, Netflix’s His & Hers successfully mixed its appeal with Agatha Christie. His & Hers Perfectly Mixes Agatha Christie and Sharp Objects Image courtesy of Everett Collection Released in 2018, HBO’s adaptation of Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn’s 2006 debut novel Sharp Objects is a grim, brutal watch. Amy Adams’ troubled protagonist, the alcoholic reporter Camille Preaker, is re-traumatized by unsettling memories of her adolescence when she returns to her small hometown to investigate the horrifying murders of numerous local young girls. The show’s flashbacks to Camille’s youth hint at a disturbing backstory while, in the present, her family is falling apart under the weight of the investigation. So far, the show sounds like it could not be further in tone from one of Christie’s Poirot novels or one of the many playful shows and movies they inspired, from the BBC’s Death in Paradise to the Knives Out movies. However, Netflix’s Alice Feeney adaptation from January 2026 proves that Christie’s familiar formula could be injected with some of Flynn’s darker edge to create a welcome mashup. Set in a small town in Georgia, His & Hers follows Tessa Thompson’s conflicted reporter Anna as she returns home to investigate a string of brutal killings. Unlike the victims in Sharp Objects, these dead women are all adults, but they were all friends with Anna when she was a teenager. This prompts Jon Bernthal’s Detective Jack Harper to suspect her involvement in the killings, and the fact that Anna and Jack had a love affair that ended in heartbreak doesn’t aid his objectivity. Off the bat, it is easy to see the similarities between His & Hers and Sharp Objects. The sweaty small-town southern setting of both shows, and their shared dual timelines, their big final twists, their ill-advised romances between the reporter heroine and her cop love interest, and their grisly, disturbing tone prove that the Alice Feeney adaptation borrows plenty from HBO’s hit. His & Hers Updates Agatha Christie’s Formula For The 21st Century Image courtesy of Everett Collection However, the murder mystery plotting, And Then There Were None-style string of killings, and revenge-centric motivations of the surprise killer are more reminiscent of Christie’s novels than Flynn’s book and its subsequent screen adaptation. Like HBO’s satirical whodunit The White Lotus, His & Hers introduces some of the most profoundly unlikable characters in recent murder mystery history, making viewers wonder whether the killings of the victims were justified. Although the show doesn’t immediately call to mind Christie’s work, fans of the author will recognize plenty of similarities between His & Hers and the mystery genre legend’s work. The Netflix show does for Christie’s more disturbing books, like And Then There Were None and Hallowe’en Party, what the Knives Out movies, The Thursday Murder Club, Death in Paradise, and so many other shows have done for her lighter works, like Miss Marple. When Christie is mentioned, the first thing readers tend to remember are the fun character details of her amateur sleuths, like Poirot’s rules for the perfect breakfast egg or Miss Marple’s love of idle gossip. What fewer readers recall is just how much her books grapple with morality, with the famous ending of Murder on the Orient Express leaving readers to decide whether murder is sometimes justifiable, depending on the context. While His & Hers gets so dark that the show eventually starts to feel almost like a supernatural detective thriller akin to Stephen King’s The Outsider, its eventual twist ending reveals a similar preoccupation with morality. Throughout the show, viewers have been amused by the comically callous nastiness of Alice’s former friends, which makes their deaths tough to mourn. However, the revelation of one major backstory re-contextualizes everything, and viewers are left to reckon with whether any moral misdeed is worthy of murder. Netflix’s His & Hers Added The Adaptation’s Sharp Objects Influence Netflix His & Hers has a lot on its mind and, for all the show’s superficial similarities with Sharp Objects, the Netflix hit ultimately leaves readers pondering the same heavy existential questions of guilt, morality, penitence, and punishment as Christie’s darkest books. Admittedly, the show won’t have a lot in common with Christie’s work for viewers who remember her output as a cozy precursor to detective procedurals like Columbo. However, for anyone who remembers just how morally complex and ambiguous Christie’s work was at its best, His & Hers is a bracing, brutal must-watch murder mystery. Interestingly enough, the show’s similarities to Sharp Objects were drastically increased by its adaptation, which moved the story from a deeply Christie setting to the Southern United States. The original book is set in a small English town, so it has a very different tone and feel compared to the show’s obvious Sharp Objects influence. While the book is as dark as the series, its small-town English setting inevitably means that Feeney’s original novel feels more reminiscent of Christie’s darkest books than Netflix's take on His & Hers, with its comparatively obvious creative debt to 2018’s earlier HBO show Sharp Objects. Release Date 2026 - 2026-00-00 Network Netflix Directors Anja Marquardt Writers Tori Sampson Creator(s) William Oldroyd