The Christie Affair
A Novel
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4.2 • 795 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Why would the world's most famous mystery writer disappear for eleven days? What makes a woman desperate enough to destroy another woman's marriage? How deeply can a person crave revenge?
"Sizzles from its first sentence." - The Wall Street Journal
A Reese's Book Club Pick
In 1925, Miss Nan O’Dea infiltrated the wealthy, rarefied world of author Agatha Christie and her husband, Archie. In every way, she became a part of their life––first, both Christies. Then, just Archie. Soon, Nan became Archie’s mistress, luring him away from his devoted wife, desperate to marry him. Nan’s plot didn’t begin the day she met Archie and Agatha.
It began decades before, in Ireland, when Nan was a young girl. She and the man she loved were a star-crossed couple who were destined to be together––until the Great War, a pandemic, and shameful secrets tore them apart. Then acts of unspeakable cruelty kept them separated.
What drives someone to murder? What will someone do in the name of love? What kind of crime can someone never forgive? Nina de Gramont’s brilliant, unforgettable novel explores these questions and more.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Explore a captivating true mystery from Agatha Christie’s own life. Nina de Gramont’s fascinating historical novel recounts the legendary author’s infamous 1926 disappearance—though the eyes of her husband Archie’s mistress, Nan O’Dea. After learning about Archie’s unfaithfulness, Agatha drives off on a chilly December evening, abandoning her precious car in the middle of nowhere and vanishing for 11 days. The Christie Affair makes us contemplate the logic behind each of Agatha’s actions and helps us put together the story of why she chose to come back. Filled with unexpected twists, an unimaginable secret, and even a couple of vengeful murders, de Gramont’s pageturner perfectly marries established fact with gripping fiction. Dive into one of the literary world’s greatest mysteries.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
De Gramont (The Last September) offers an intriguing new theory of why Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days in this superior thriller, which places the woman Christie's husband, Archie, was having an affair with at the time—here the fictional Nan O'Dea—at its center. A gripping opening sentence teases O'Dea's dark side ("A long time ago, in another country, I nearly killed a woman"). In December 1926, Archie decides to reveal the affair to his wife, to whom the news comes as no surprise. Agatha, however, is taken aback by her husband's declaration that he is both leaving her and seeking a divorce. A day later, the world-famous mystery author vanishes, and her abandoned car is found near a body of water notorious for corpses being found in it, leading some to suspect the writer killed herself. Flashbacks flesh out the backstory of O'Dea, who at 19 was sent to a convent by the head of the family she was working for in Ireland after getting pregnant by his son. De Gramont treats O'Dea's story with sympathy and care, highlighting the bleak circumstances for both women in the historical period and teasing out the motivations for breaking up the Christies' marriage. This is an enjoyable reimagining of a scandal whose exact nature remains a puzzle a century later.
Customer Reviews
The Cristie Affair
A wonderful book that allows your imagination to flow along each page as the author weaves her tale.
Excellent novel
Highly recommend.
A story about motherhood
Beginning wth the breakup of Agatha Christie’s marriage the story is told on two parrallel tracks. The foundation story turns out to be a love story between a young English girl and an Irish boy who she meets while spending a summer on a farm in Ireland. They become lovers and she gets pregnant. She is sent to a nunnery amd is expected to give up her baby after it is born.
She develops a strong emotional attachment to the baby and is devestated when it is given up for adoption.
She escapes the nunnery and goes in search of the baby. Although she remains in love with the father World War one intervenes to prevent their marriage.
She comes to believe Agatha Christie’s daughter is an adoptee and decides to replace Agatha as the mother by breaking up her marriage and then marrying Agatha’s husband, colonel Christie.
She succeds to the point that Colonel Christie tells Agatha he is going to divorce her.
After a brief emotional colllapse Agatha responds by running away from home. A seriwa of coincidences result in her being taken away bo a country hotel by the real father of Agatha’s daughter. He wants Agatha. to convince his lover to abandon the pursuit of Agatha’s husband and marry him.
Agatha remains incognito and a massive search is launched to find her.
The book is the story of the search and one particular detective involved in the search. It is interleaved with recapitulations of the story of events in the nunnery which by another coincidence become part of the story of the manor house where Agatha is hiding.
I found the characters and their dilemmas came alive. to me.
The author, a teacher of critical writing, weaves an immersive tale based on actual events.