The Mystery of Mrs. Christie: A Novel

This book is incredibly one-sided. I have read a much better, thoroughly researched biography of Agatha Christie's life. She was not the docile, suppressed, self-effacing wife portrayed in this book. Far from it. She became financially successful long before her husband, whose financial woes she openly disdained. Her money belonged to her and she refused to help.her husband out when he was financially distressed. In her idea of a happy marriage, couples argued often and loudly in order to.proclaim their love. Violent arguments in which objects were thrown at the beloved (by Agatha, not Archie) were healthy. Archie was no great catch, being an average self-absorbed man of mediocre abilities who fell for a much younger woman. Agatha's harebrained pretend disappearance occurred as a form.of revenge for her discovery of the affair, but quickly spiraled out of her control as the nation became frenzied in looking for her and as Archie became desperate in trying to.protect the reputation of his mistress.The book's author is certainly not objective, portraying her heroine as suffering and blighted and Archie as selfish and brutal. But really, what mother of a supposed beloved child would carefully stage a disappearance in which murder seems the likeliest outcome? She had family and lifelong friends. What were they to believe?Agatha Christie refused to mention the lost days in her own autobiography, as if to pretend that this incident didn't exist would make it so. Her personal life continued to be marred by marital unhappiness. Her second marriage to a much younger man lasted until.her death. She poured out financial resources to make her new archeologist husband successful and famous. He rewarded her enormous support by engaging in an affair that lasted decades, and which Agatha tolerated in order to avoid a second divorce. Really very sad.

I am astonished by the good reviews for this book. I was so annoyed at the dreadful writing that I gave up reading after only about twenty minutes.I almost quit reading after the first paragraph, in which we have “footsteps thundering across the floor. . . . The black, spiky words that possess the ivory page seem to come alive and pulsate with each heavy tread.” Oh, good grief.Although I don’t think that’s quite as bad as, “not one of the black uniformed officers gathered in the kitchen like a swarm of deadly bees gathered around their queen takes notice of him.”And then we have people blushing. Again and again. A few examples from my twenty minutes of reading:“A fierce blush overtaking my face”“A soft pink hue begins to spread across Nancy’s cheeks, and though she looks lovely with her cheeks aflame. . . .““His cheeks turned a fiery red, visible even in the low ballroom light.”“My cheeks flushed and warm”“whose cheeks shone bright red.”In addition, I was irritated by the numerous long, run-on sentences, the strange use of adjectives, and the misuse of words (“his wife’s distinctive ivory stationary”).Did people ever talk like this: “I intend to be integral to the war effort, a critical cog in the massive military machine”?I’ll also add that I am sick and tired of the overuse of dual timelines in novels. Can’t anyone just tell a story in a straight timeline anymore?

enough unrealistic expectations to fill the pages of three books are waiting in “The Mystery of Mrs. Christie”Author, Marie Benedict, is a consummate writer of historical fiction and it shows in this biofic novel about the 11 days the great mystery writer, Agatha Christie, disappeared from her life. Benedict did due diligence with research and combined it with her fiction writers prowess to craft a story that is unique and reminiscent of the great puzzlers Christie is famous for.Bouncing back and forth between the “current day”, (or those 11 days in 1926 when Christie was missing), and the past timeline begins with Agatha meeting Archie Christie, her husband to be, at a dance in 1912, is done very well. This past timeline tells of their relationship and nudges forward throughout the book until the two are drawn together for the ending and the current focuses solely on the investigation into her disappearance.Characters are well developed and the dialogue is appropriate for both the time period and the players. There’s no foul language, violence or sexual content to speak of. Benedict is deft with prose and even tho’ it’s minimal in this book, there is a good sense of time and place.Construction of this book is very purposeful and at times the plotting feels like plodding. I suspect that’s intentional and done in homage to Ms. Christie but during the middle days of the investigation, the story became a tad laborious. It was a good ride thru the ending when emotions kicked in and the mystery was revealed.If you’re a lover of classic mysteries and unusual puzzlers, this one’s for you📚

'The Mystery of Mrs Christie' is a dull, flaccid read that is totally lacking in suspense. It might just as easily have been titled 'Cashing in on Christie's Misery'.As a member of the Royal Flying Corps, Agatha's husband Archie Christie fought for his country in World War One and deserves respect for this. Benedict's statement, "I expected that the Archie who returned from the war would be the same Archie who had left for it" underpins an emotional lack of maturity and perception that permeates the entire book in which Archie is unfairly portrayed as a social misfit despite being a successful businessman and high-flyer who had a number of titled family members and friends.Moreover, the book takes the clichéd view - which is typical of a lot of romantic fiction - that the man is always the villain of the piece and the woman is his long suffering and thankless victim. This is very much a one-side account of a marriage breakdown and a badly told one at thatBenedict is a young and up coming lawyer, so I was expecting a very exact treatment of Christie's disappearance, but her book is riddled with silly errors. She tells us on page 26 that Archie's father died in England, then contradicts herself on page 93 saying Archie's father died in India.As someone who lives near Ealing in London, I have visited the graves of Agatha's mother, her father, her sister and Auntie-Grannie at Ealing cometary so why does Benedict tell us that the funeral of Agatha's mother took place in Torquay, Devon, where she was subsequently buried?According to Benedict, in August 1919 Auntie-Grannie was still alive and joyfully anticipating the birth of Agatha's only daughter Rosalind, but Auntie-Grannie died on 29 May 1919 before Rosalind was born. Check out her grave at Ealing.Benedict claims that Mrs Belcher accompanied her husband Major Belcher on the 1922 Empire Tour which is highly odd considering he was a bachelor at this time and only married for the first time in 1926.I won't waste readers' time listing the many other factual errors.Christie was 36 when she disappeared, but Benedict portrays her as a bratty 20 something a la the TV series Gossip Girl. Instead of reading about Christie the person, I found myself reading about Benedict acting the role of Christie and imposing her feelings and emotions on her which led to an unauthentic experience.If you want to know about Agatha's marriage break-up to Archie, I would highly recommend 'Unfinished Portrait' which she published under the non de plume of Mary Westmacott. It's written with genuine charm, perception, poignancy and heartbreak that at times is so raw it almost becomes embarrassing to read owing to its first hand experience.Benedict's lack-lustre book doesn't really have an ending. It's simply all about the worm turning and telling her husband off while assuming the moral high ground despite not standing on it. Having paid £20 for Benedict's book I sadly don't feel I got my money's worth. For those of us who care about Christie as a person, Benedict's book soon descends into drivel and poses the question: is it possible to expect too much of historical fiction? Should we expect it to be factual?

Marie Benedict has created quite a following of faithful readers by tackling various unjustly neglected, but prominent women of history and science, such as Hedy Lamar, Einstein's wife Mitza Maric, and Clementine Churchill. Now she deals with the most famous author of classic murder mysteries : Agatha Christie, whose personal life proves to have been a mystery in itself. Benedict always relies on a basis of methodical research and then adds to that her own intuition and writing talent to present us with an extremely engaging result: a book hard to put down. This latest novel is written according to the plot design used successfully by Agatha Christie herself, and in this case the cleverly devised plot with its surprising twists and turns makes us doubt and wonder to the very last page. It is a stylistic triumph and a very good read!

O livro narra o maior mistério da vida de Agatha Christie.Um mistério que até hoje não foi resolvido, o único mistério da vida real, o desaparecimento, por 11 dias, da Autora.Com capítulos alternantes de um lado começamos em 1912, quando Christie conhece o marido, e 1926, simultaneamente, na noite de seu desaparecimento. Ambos os tempos se desenvolvem até encontrarem um ponto em comum na parte 2, no momento que a encontram.Vemos dois tipos de narração, uma, em primeira pessoa, narrada por Christie, e outra, em terceira, mostrando o que se passava na investigação, principalmente envolvendo a figura de Archie Christie.Uma obra extremamente informativa mas que entretém também, vemos todo o rebuliço causado pelo desaparecimento da autora, que foi investigado por dois chefes de polícia, contou com buscas pela Inglaterra e envolveu até a ajuda do autor de Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, para encontrá-la.Vemos também um pouco da sua situação matrimonial e momentos pivotais na vida da autora como seu casamento, suas primeiras publicações, quando ela se junta ao corpo de enfermeiras durante a guerra, o nascimento de sua filha e a morte de sua mãe.Incrivelmente bem escrita, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, é uma obra que completa com ficção as lacunas presentes na vida real e traz um desfecho interessante, plausível e incrível para a história!

It read like a pre-teen novel and was super corny. Only made it 70% through and gave up.