Often referred to as the American Agatha Christie, Mary Roberts Rinehart was an American journalist and writer who is best known for the murder mystery The Circular Staircaseconsidered to have started the Had-I-but-known school of mystery writingand the popular Tish mystery series. A prolific writer, Rinehart was originally educated as a nurse, but turned to writing as a source of income after the 1903 stock market crash. Although primarily a fiction writer, Rinehart served as the Saturday Evening Post s correspondent for from the Belgian front during the First World War, and later published a series of travelogues and an autobiography. Roberts died in New York City in 1958.