Review: The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont (audio)

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press / Macmillan Audio

Published: February 1, 2022

Source: Print – Netgalley via Publisher / Audio – ALC via Publisher

 

Summary:

Nina de Gramont’s The Christie Affair is a beguiling novel of star-crossed lovers, heartbreak, revenge, and murder—and a brilliant re-imagination of one of the most talked-about unsolved mysteries of the twentieth century.

Every story has its secrets.
Every mystery has its motives.

“A long time ago, in another country, I nearly killed a woman. It’s a particular feeling, the urge to murder. It takes over your body so completely, it’s like a divine force, grabbing hold of your will, your limbs, your psyche. There’s a joy to it. In retrospect, it’s frightening, but I daresay in the moment it feels sweet. The way justice feels sweet.”

The greatest mystery wasn’t Agatha Christie’s disappearance in those eleven infamous days, it’s what she discovered.

London, 1925: In a world of townhomes and tennis matches, socialites and shooting parties, Miss Nan O’Dea became Archie Christie’s mistress, luring him away from his devoted and well-known wife, Agatha Christie.

The question is, why? Why destroy another woman’s marriage, why hatch a plot years in the making, and why murder? How was Nan O’Dea so intricately tied to those eleven mysterious days that Agatha Christie went missing?

 

My thoughts:

I’ve become quite obsessed with anything to do with Agatha Christie and so of course as soon as I heard about this book, I knew I had to read it. It seems that Agatha Christie’s disappearance has become quite the “it” topic lately!

I first heard about the disappearance of Agatha Christie when I read Marie Benedict’s The Mystery of Mrs. Christie. I really enjoyed that one and how she structured the book. What I love about historical fiction is reading different accounts of the same event and that is why I had no issues picking this book up. Yes, it covers the same event, yet because it is historical fiction, there is that leeway for the author to take the factual events and tie then in with their own fictional ones and I have to say, I really liked how Nina de Gramont structured her story – it was a very different take than Benedict’s.

This one is told primarily from the point of view of Nan O’Dea, who was Agatha Christie’s husband’s mistress. She gives us not only Nan’s backstory and what was going on in Agatha’s life leading up to the disappearance, but a possible new theory as to why Agatha might have disappeared in the first place. Most of the story is told in that time period, but we do move back to Nan’s past. This part of the storyline might have you questioning why it is included at first, but I promise you it does eventually make sense.

Agatha Christie’s disappearance only lasted 11 days and then she chose not to speak of those days ever again. That is why there is so much mystery surrounding this disappearance and I’m loving that there is such an interest in this topic right now. I’ll read whatever books come out about it as I find it so fascinating and this one really did keep my interest from start to finish. If you like mysteries with just the right intrigue, this one is for you!

 

Audio thoughts:

I was able to listen to an early copy of this one and the narrator, Lucy Scott, does a fantastic job bringing the story to life. I found myself completely engaged in the story and ended up listening to this one in one day! Lucy really brings her A-game to this narration, giving each character their own unique personality and infusing just the right amount of tension and emotion into her voice as needed.