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There are currently 23 member reviews
for The Mystery of Mrs. Christie
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Pam S. (Massachusetts)
The Mystery of Mrs. Christie
In 1926, Agatha Christie mysteriously disappeared for 11 days leaving her husband and small daughter behind. England was riveted to the investigation and thousands of citizens joined in the search for the famous author.
Marie Benedict has re-imagined this story as a battle of wills between Christie and her husband Col. Archibald Christie. There are two narratives, that of Mrs. Christie's starting in the early days of the couple's courtship and that of Col. Christie's during the time of the search for his missing wife. Like any good mystery, there are unreliable narrators, misdirection and unexpected plot twists. One of the pleasures of this novel is seeing how Christie's life and environment is reflected in her books. This is a must read for fans of Agatha Christie as well as readers with an interest in stories set in the years around World War 1 in England.
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Dianne S. (Green Valley, AZ)
Agatha Christie: Missing Person?
The tale of Agatha Christie's 11 day disappearance is one I have read about before and have even seen a movie about. Marie Benedict brings the story to life from a whole new perspective, or at least new to me.
The story is told from several points of view. The courtship of Archie and Agatha, Agatha life leading up to the disappearance and that of Archie left behind to fend for or defend himself.
It is said that Agatha never spoke of the disappearance during her lifetime, but there are certain clues, if you will, that seem to appear in all accounts. Marie Benedict uses these known fact to tell her story.
As in other historical fiction books such as The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin and the Paris Wife by Paula McLain, the husband's reputation doesn't fair well by the book's end. Archie Christie is depicted as having had designs on Agatha when she was young, winning her over and then discarding her when he was ready to move on. Upon Agatha's realization this had been the course of her life, she puts a positive spin on the fact that she would not be who she is and achieved all she had if she hadn't had to go down this path.
I recommend this to all who enjoy historical fiction.
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Dawn Z. (Canton, MI)
Recommended for fans of Agatha Christie
By the time I enrolled in college, I had read all of Agatha Christie's books. I loved them. This book, a fictional look at a real event in Agatha Christie's life, was quite good. The author wrote the story in a way that was as interesting as a "real" Agatha Christie and offered a believable backstory to her disappearance.
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Liz B. (Fairview, TX)
A Good Mystery
This is a gripping piece of historical fiction, imagining what might have transpired during the real-life disappearance of Agatha Christie. The story was well developed, although I had trouble aligning the two very different personalities of Mrs. Christie, as told from the points of view of herself and her husband, Archie. An interesting story that I knew nothing about prior to reading the novel. Book clubs will enjoy discussing the "what ifs" that inevitably crop up throughout the book.
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Barbara B. (Evansville, IN)
Positive Spin on Agatha Christie
Marie Benedict has crafted a very good fictional explanation for the brief disappearance of mystery writer Agatha Christie. Both characters, Agatha and Archie Christie, are fully created in their personalities and their lifestyles. The book alternates chapters, told from both husband and wife point-of-views for most of the novel. Archie is quite villainous in character, while Agatha emerges as a strong, self-sufficient woman despite her cheating, loathsome husband. I almost felt like a marriage counselor, trying to mediate their quarrels.
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Paula Jacunski
The mystery of Mrs. Christie
Very good book. Benedict effectively bounces from Agatha's meeting and courtship with Christie to their marriage, birth of their daughter and their life together. It's a believable story of the disappearance of Mrs. Christie. The only thing keeping me from a 5 star rating is that some aspects of the disappearance seemed to fit together too neatly. I'll be reading more from this author.
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Rebecca H. (Bolton, CT)
The Mystery of Mrs. Christie
Benedict's novel is an interesting fictionalized take on the well-known disappearance of the mystery writer Agatha Christie in 1926 when her whereabouts were unknown for eleven days. Her car was found abandoned with a bag of clothes inside. Although it was unknown to the press at the time, Mrs. Christie's husband had just told her that he wanted a divorce in order to marry his mistress. Her vanishing caused a sensation in newspapers all across England, the police and public wondering if she had become a victim of foul play in the style of one of her own novels.
The author has organized the story using alternating dual timelines, one encompassing the early years of Christie's romance, marriage, and writing career, and the other the eleven days following her disappearance. The former timeline chapters tell the story from Mrs. Christie's point of view, and the latter from the viewpoint of her husband, Archie. For the reader, this makes an interesting juxtaposition between two different interpretations of events. The circumstances, attitudes, and emotions which motivate the actions of the characters are well-developed in the chapters dealing with the earlier time frame and the novelist's imagination fills in the gaps in what is known about the real-life events.
I thoroughly enjoyed the story, and I think the dual-timeline approach works well for the most part. The pace moves along well and the characters are believable and well-drawn. There is some dialogue that doesn't quite ring true for me in terms of the speech of that particular social class during that time period in England, but this problem may be addressed in the final edition of the book.
All in all, I'd rate the novel as an enjoyable story well worth reading.
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