re: Did Agatha Christi plagiarize an earlier novel set in NOLA?

CrimeReads: The Unique Pleasures of a Mystery Novel with a High Death Count

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The Invisible Host by Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning (1930)

This novel, written by a married couple, has an almost identical plot to And Then There Were None, but predates it by nine years. Eight people are invited to an apartment for a party. Then they are locked in and read a telegram that states that they will all die that night. What follows isn’t quite as clever, or logical, as the Christie book, but it’s a fun oddity and there are, not surprisingly, a large number of deaths.

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Amazon.com

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Gwen Bristow was born in Marion, South Carolina in 1903, and Bruce Manning in Cuddebackville, New York in 1902. In 1924, following Bristow's graduation from Judson College, her parents moved to New Orleans, the setting for The Invisible Host (1930). In the late 1920s, Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning, both Louisiana journalists at that point, met and married. Their first joint novel, The Invisible Host, was a success, and was followed by stage and film adaptations, and two further mysteries.The couple moved to Hollywood and there Bristow established herself as a prolific and successful writer of historical fiction, while Manning became a well-respected screenwriter, producer and director. They continued to live in California until their respective deaths, Manning's in 1965, Bristow's in 1980.

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Manning is credited with writing several interesting films, notably the 1941 version of Fannie Hurst's classic tearjerker Back Street.

Bristow became a successful novelist. Wikipedia:

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in California began writing what would become her Louisiana plantation novels. Deep Summer (1937), The Handsome Road (1938), and This Side of Glory (1940) are historical novels that follow two Louisiana families over the course of several generations. These novels established Bristow as a popular writer of historical fiction.

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Bristow's next hit was Jubilee Trail (1950) which she wrote over seven years. The novel is set against the backdrop of westward expansion in the 1840s. The protagonist Garnet Hale joins a wagon train bound for California, and the novel offers a fictionalized account of the early Santa Fe trail pioneers. Jubilee Trail was on several bestseller lists for months. A film version, which premiered at the Saenger Theater on Canal Street in New Orleans, was also successful.

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