The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict – 272 pages
ARC from Sourcebooks Landmark and Netgalley for an honest review
Book Blurb:
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 husband and 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 exploration into the shadows of history, 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 a murky story.
My Review: 3.5 stars
The Mystery of Mrs. Christie unlocked a fictional rendition of what happened during a mysterious period of the real Agatha Christie’s life. Almost everyone knows of Agatha Christie, the world-famous author known for her mystery & detective novel, but not everyone knows she went missing for eleven days in her early career. When found, she claimed amnesia and emotional distress. Benedict’s story weaves a fictional tale of what led up to, and happened during, Mrs. Christie’s missing days.
The chapters alternate between Agatha first meeting her future husband in 1912, and their subsequent life together, and the days surrounding her disappearance in 1926 – with the two timelines eventually converging. I liked that the pre-disappearance chapters gave us insight into Agatha as an author, a wife and a mother. It lent to the alternate chapters by helping the reader understand the motives and decisions of the characters during that time. This book was definitely a slow burn with the chapters building one another up.
Usually, slow burning novels pay off in the end, but this reveal felt too quick. I felt as if there could have been more, although given that you can Google Christie and learn what happened after the disappearance, there wasn’t much more Benedict could’ve added to her fictionalized tale. For a book about a mystery author, there wasn’t a lot of mystery surrounding the plot. Yes, we don’t know the why or the what surrounding the disappearance, but I was never at the edge of my seat wanting to find out.
Overall, I enjoyed The Mystery of Mrs. Christie as it was a different take on what could have happened during those eleven days. I also loved getting to learn about Agatha Christie the person, as well as Agatha Christie the author. So much is known about her books, but less is known about her, so it was a nice treat to learn how she writing career came to be, and how it affected her and those around her.
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