The Mystery of Mrs. Christie: A Novel
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER!
"A stunning story... The ending is ingenious, and it's possible that Benedict has brought to life the most plausible explanation for why Christie disappeared for 11 days in 1926."--The Washington Post
The New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Only Woman in the Room returns with a thrilling reconstruction of one of the most notorious events in literary history: Agatha Christie's mysterious 11-day disappearance in 1926.
In December 1926, Agatha Christie goes missing. Investigators find her empty car on the edge of a deep, gloomy pond, the only clues some tire tracks nearby and a fur coat left in the car--strange for a frigid night. Her World War I veteran husband and her daughter have no knowledge of her whereabouts, and England unleashes an unprecedented manhunt to find the up-and-coming mystery author. Eleven days later, she reappears, just as mysteriously as she disappeared, claiming amnesia and providing no explanations for her time away.
The puzzle of those missing eleven days has persisted. With her trademark historical fiction exploration into the shadows of the past, acclaimed author Marie Benedict brings us into the world of Agatha Christie, imagining why such a brilliant woman would find herself at the center of such murky historical mysteries.
What is real, and what is mystery? What role did her unfaithful husband play, and what was he not telling investigators?
Agatha Christie novels have withstood the test of time, due in no small part to Christie's masterful storytelling and clever mind that may never be matched, but Agatha Christie's untold history offers perhaps her greatest mystery of all.
Fans of The Secrets We Kept, The Lions of Fifth Avenue, and The Alice Network will enjoy this riveting saga of literary history, suspense, and love gone wrong.
Other Bestselling Historical Fiction from Marie Benedict:
Lady Clementine
The Only Woman in the Room
Carnegie's Maid
The Other Einstein
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Community Reviews
Agatha and her husband take turns telling the story. Agatha's chapters go back to the past, starting when she met her future husband and going up to the day she disappears. His start with learning of her disappearance, and they alternate until she is "found" at a Yorkshire spa. Her chapters are filled with a growing knowledge that the man she married is not the loving husband she thought he was and that perhaps her mother's advice to make him the absolute focus of her life to the exclusion of all else, even their daughter, is not all it's cracked up to be. His chapters are threaded through with an overlying but vague threat that she made in a letter she left for him before she disappeared that require him to play his part in solving the "mystery".
Benedict tells this story capably, staying very close to the known facts. So close that one wonders what the reader learns that the newspapers haven't already reported. Of course, a novel takes us into the characters' heads in a way that journalism can't, but Benedict seems to have left her imagination by the wayside in inhabiting her characters. Agatha matures throughout the book as she realizes that her marriage is not all that she hoped it would be, and becomes more resolute in her determination to shape her own destiny, but Mr. Christie is very one-dimensional throughout his chapters. I suppose some characters are easier to write than others, but I hope that for Ms. Benedict's next book, she chooses a subject that alows her more free rein with her generous writing talents.
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