Nina de Gramont offers a very different take on the 11 day disappearance of Agatha Christie in December of 1926. Ostensibly told from the perspective of Christie's husband's (Archie) mistress, Nancy Neele (known as Nan O'Dea in the book), we are led to believe that both women disappeared at roughly the same time, that they somehow ended up in the same small resort town (Harrogate, and that their paths crossed and they became friends -- sort of. In real life, her disappearance remains a total mystery as she never spoke of it after she was found by one of the largest manhunt's in England's history. According to the Washington Post, the most likely explanation has been offered by Christie biographer Gillian Gill. "Christie registered at that Harrogate spa under the alias “Teresa Neele.” In so doing, Gill says, Christie cleverly found a way to publicize the last name of her husband’s mistress at a time when discretion dictated that her existence be kept private."
In this book, the mistress has become a calculating and strategic actor with one goal in mind--to displace Agatha Christie as Archie's wife. We learn why through interspersed flashbacks about Nan's early life. Archie did in fact divorce Agatha (who later remarried) and marry Nancy Neele. Whether or not the reason Nan wanted to be Mrs. Christie is true, I don't know, but certainly the situation that she describes as a young pregnant woman sent off to a Catholic home for unwed mothers has lots of historical validity. In their review, Kirkus praises the characters created and gushingly concludes that the book is "Devilishly clever, elegantly composed and structured—simply splendid." Likewise, Publishers Weekly calls it a "superior thriller."
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