Book Review: The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont

My Rating:

 3.5⭐

Nina de Gramont's The Christie Affair is a fictionalized account of a chapter from the renowned author Ms. Agatha Christies’s own life. On December 3, 1926, Ms. Agatha Christie disappeared from her home leaving her husband and young daughter behind only to resurface eleven days later at a hotel in Harrogate where she had been staying under an assumed name. Needless to say, her disappearance made national news and led to a nationwide search. To this day there is no public knowledge of the events that transpired over those eleven days.

As the story begins we meet Colonel Archibald (Archie) Christie who is embroiled in an affair with Miss Nan O’Dea. Agatha is aware of the relationship between Nan, whom she knows and her husband Archie but remains hopeful that her marriage can be saved.

“She loved her husband. After twelve years of marriage, she loved him blindly and hopefully, as if in her thirty-six years of life she’d learned nothing about the world.”

Archie, leaving on a weekend with Nan, informs Agatha of his intentions to leave her and end their marriage. Shocked and heartbroken, Agatha packs her bags and drives off in her car leaving her daughter with Honoria, her secretary and her daughter’s nanny, and a note for Archie. She is nowhere to be found and subsequently, the discovery of her abandoned car leads to a nationwide search for the missing author. Archie is distraught, the police get involved, the disappearance makes national news with famous figures like Dorothy Sayers and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle also contributing to the efforts. Nan is asked to lay low for sake of public image. She travels to Harrogate and books a stay at the Bellefort Hotel and Spa where we meet a host of interesting characters and another mystery is introduced into the narrative.

The story is narrated by Archie’s mistress Miss Nan O’Dea (a character based on Ms. Nancy Neele who would late become Archie Christie's second wife). The timeline shifts between the past and present with much of the past narrative focused on Nan’s story beginning from her early years with her family in England, summers spent in Ireland on her Uncle’s farm and her first love Finbarr Mahoney and gradually we are made aware of how her past ties in with her relationship with the Christies and the events unfolding in the present. The present-day narrative (also told from Nan’s POV) follows Nan , Agatha and all the other characters through the duration of Ms. Christie’s disappearance.

“In the history of the world there’s been one story a man tells his mistress. He doesn’t love his wife, perhaps never loved her at all. There’s been no sex for years, not a whisper of it. His marriage is absent passion, absent affection, absent joy. A barren and miserable place. He stays for the children, or for money, or for propriety. It’s a matter of convenience. The new lover is his only respite.”

This story, for the most part, revolves around the themes of love, marriage, infidelity and revenge. I found the element of mystery within a mystery quite interesting. In fact, I enjoyed this second mystery (reminiscent of Agatha Christie's work) more than the primary narrative. I would have enjoyed this novel more had there been more focus on Agatha’s story. Though the book is titled "The Christie Affair”, at times it seemed Agatha Christie was in a supporting role with Nan O’ Dea as the protagonist of the novel. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but in which case, I would say the title of the book is more than a tad misleading. Having said that, this is a well written novel with engaging characters and backstories that give us a window into the life and times in pre and post-WWI England, a heartbreaking account of how unwed mothers were treated in the convents of Ireland (there is also a mention of the infamous Magdalene Laundries) and of course an interesting though fictitious take on what the famous author was up to while the whole country was searching for her.