Not only do we have some fab characters that could have stepped from one of her own novels, we are exposed to her knowledge of poisons the settings used are the perfect backdrop to this dark yet utterly enjoyable novel along with references to the early works completed at the time. The reader is allowed inside the head of the man trying to hoodwink Agatha and he is definitely one bad guy, I’d go as far to say that he is one of the creepiest protagonists of all time, and his confident that he’s outwitted Agatha, but is he right? To balance out the creepiness we have an eye on the official investigation into her disappearance led by Superintendent William Kenward with particularly satisfying moments when he puts Archie on the spot about his real feelings for Agatha, and Nancy with Archie being outed as the philanderer he was! She is well-known for writing murder mysteries, even if she is struggling with her latest novel, and he wants to use this knowledge for his own purposes. To add authenticity the book starts with a meeting between the man who is determined to use Agatha for her own advantage.
Andrew Wilson has cleverly plotted around these facts so much so that at before long I had to remind myself this was fiction. But despite a massive man-hunt nothing else was known until Agatha was found ten days later in a hotel in Harrogate where she’d registered as Mrs Teresa Neele from Cape Town. Her husband, Archie Christie had chosen to spend the weekend at his friend’s house in Godalming in Surrey, at a party which his mistress Nancy Neele was attending. She’d left her house, Styles in Berkshire with a note to her housekeeper saying that she was going to Yorkshire. Despite that it took me a couple of chapters before I was convinced…įirst to the facts Agatha’s car was found with a suitcase of clothes and her driver’s licence at Newlands Corner near Guildford in Surrey. Andrew Wilson has created his Agatha Christie as a strong, intelligent woman who has found herself backed into a corner as she tries desperately to protect her errant husband, she still loves him dearly despite the fact that she knows he is having an affair, and her young daughter. It is all too easy for these types of books, of which I’ve read a few, to come across as cheesy, perhaps because the author imagines that what we know about the famous person concerned will hold our interest through sketchy characterisation. Andrew Wilson has come up with a brilliant premise for this novel based on Agatha Christie’s disappearance in December 1926 and executed it with aplomb!
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