On the 4th of December 1926, the English novelist Agatha Christie disappeared without a trace. She was missing for a total of 11 days, and upon her return maintained that she had no recollection of what had happened to her. The truth of her disappearance has remained a mystery for years. Many writers and analysts have tried to decode Christie’s disappearance over the years, and Nina De Gramont is the latest author to suggest an explanation for one of the most notorious missing persons cases in 20th Century England.
The Christie Affair is narrated by Nan O’Dea, the mistress of Christie’s husband, Colonel Archie Christie. She narrates all the circumstances that surround Christie’s disappearance, particularly in the days before she went missing. Nan’s affair with Archie is framed by De Gramont as the catalyst behind Agatha’s disappearance.
O’Dea’s background as a young woman during the First World War and her painful personal experiences in its aftermath provide important context for her determined pursuit of a relationship with a man whom she doesn’t really love. Nan’s connection to the Christies, and her place as Archie’s mistress, cements her as the central character of the story, around which the others revolve.
Though The Christie Affair is, and should be understood as, a work of fiction, Nan O’Dea is not a completely fictional character as many are likely to presume. Instead, Nan’s character is actually based on a woman called Nancy Neele, who was the real mistress of Archie Christie and later became his second wife.
Based on this fact, Nina De Gramont has constructed her own version of Archie’s mistress to create a suspenseful and at times deeply touching story that revolves around the tense relationship between the Christies and Nan, who’s true intentions towards her lover are tangled up in a painful secret that Nan has kept close to her chest for many years. What she and the other women endured in Ireland happened to an untold number of women in reality, and informs an important sub-plot related to a second case running in parallel to Agatha’s disappearance.
In The Christie Affair, De Gramont crafts a fictional story that offers a plausible explanation as to what could have caused the disappearance of Agatha Christie. The story uses themes of marriage and adultery to draw the reader in to the private life of one of the world’s best known crime writers, allowing them to speculate about the circumstances that may have caused the Queen of Mystery to go missing for days, unseen by her close relatives, and ultimately leaving inspectors across England clueless about the entire case.
One of the most notable structural choices De Gramont used in the novel, in a nod to one of Agatha Christie’s own techniques seen time and time again in her famous detective novels, was to keep the main reveal of all the mysteries and characters’ secrets until the very end of the story. Like in a Christie novel, readers picked up several clues along the way, but it wasn’t until the inspector in the novel worked out the extraordinary set of circumstances that had led to Christie’s prolonged disappearance that we knew the full extent of what had been going on behind the scenes. All but one thread – arguably the most important one by the end of the story – was wrapped up, but its up to the reader to decide how they want that story to end, and ultimately if Nan’s sacrifices were worth it.
The Christie Affair is a fascinating speculation of Christie’s missing persons case, and also one of the best stories that has been written about Agatha Christie. All of the elements in the novel came together to form a well-constructed and exciting plot that will undoubtedly be a favourite for many this year.
Words by Joyce Bou Charaa
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