The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont

 Does The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont, refer to the actual affair Agatha Christie’s husband Archibald had with Nancy Neele, fictionalized as Nan O’Dea in the book, or does it refer to the 11-day disappearance of the crime novelist that she was never able to explain? Whichever, the book reimagines that famous vanishing from the point of view of the mistress.

Nancy/Nan wormed her way into the Christies’ lives by befriending both the wife and the husband, much like Pauline Pfeiffer did with Hadley and Ernest Hemingway...and in the same year, 1925. Both women became the mistress before being able to assert Mrs. before the famous last names. Agatha and Nancy met while working on a committee to design and organize a children's section of the 1925 British Empire Exhibition in Wembley.

The distress caused by Nancy/Nan’s luring away Agatha’s husband is thought to be the impetus for Agatha to disappear for 11 days, which was a mystery that fascinated readers of her work. Her husband was even a suspect in the possible murder of “the lady novelist,” who had not yet reached a high level of fame. On the other hand, Agatha spent little time on this episode of her life in her autobiography other than to call it a case of temporary amnesia.

While at times de Gramont seems to borrow from the movies and other stories about this time in Agatha’s life, the author takes the plot to where it has never gone before, hinted at in the opening line, “A long time ago in another country, I nearly killed a woman.” Not only is this work of historical fiction a look at what happened to Agatha during the time she seemed to have evaporated from her life, it is also a murder mystery with a subplot about poor pregnant unmarried girls in Ireland, what happened to their babies, and the thirst for revenge and resolution for these women.

Nina de Gramont is an associate professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.  The author of a collection of short stories, Of Cats and Men, she has written three adult novels as well as several YA novels under the pen name Marina Gessner.  She lives in coastal North Carolina with her daughter and her husband, the Pushcart Prize-winning writer David Gessner.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting November 28, 2021.

I’d like to thank St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.