Book Review: The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont
The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication Date: February 1, 2022
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Nina de Gramont’s The Christie Affair is a stunning new novel that reimagines the unexplained eleven-day disappearance of Agatha Christie that captivated the world.
Every story has its secrets.
Every mystery has its motives.
“A long time ago, in another country, I nearly killed a woman. It’s a particular feeling, the urge to murder. It takes over your body so completely, it’s like a divine force, grabbing hold of your will, your limbs, your psyche. There’s a joy to it. In retrospect, it’s frightening, but I daresay in the moment it feels sweet. The way justice feels sweet.”
The greatest mystery wasn’t Agatha Christie’s disappearance in those eleven infamous days, it’s what she discovered.
London, 1925: In a world of townhomes and tennis matches, socialites and shooting parties, Miss Nan O’Dea became Archie Christie’s mistress, luring him away from his devoted and well-known wife, Agatha Christie.
The question is, why? Why destroy another woman’s marriage, why hatch a plot years in the making, and why murder? How was Nan O’Dea so intricately tied to those eleven mysterious days that Agatha Christie went missing?
A beguiling novel of star-crossed lovers, heartbreak, revenge, and murder—and a brilliant re-imagination of one of the most talked-about unsolved mysteries of the twentieth century.
In 1926, the novelist Agatha Christie disappeared for eleven days. She never explained where she was or what she did during that time. The Christie Affair is Nina de Gramont’s imagining of the events leading up to Christie’s disappearance and what she was doing during that time. It’s told in first person by Agatha Christie’s husband’s mistress, Nan. It’s interesting because Nan is a bit of an unreliable narrator since she wasn’t with Agatha most of the time.
The Christie Affair is actually mostly Nan’s story. Nan has quite a few secrets and they lead to some crazy twists and turns in this book. It’s hard to say too much more without spoilers. I will say that the author takes quite a few liberties with the facts of Christie’s life so if you like historical fiction to be mostly accurate, this book will probably frustrate you a little bit. It’s not going to be on my list of favorites for the year but I still enjoyed it.
