Reading the Detectives discussion

This is a discussion thread for our next buddy read Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days

http://www.historyextra.com/feature/w...

Here is a link to an article from the BBC History Magazine about Agatha Christie's mysterious disappearance, for those who are not familiar with it.

I do think this event was central to Christie's life and she never liked to refer to it - or forgave those who did. It has been the subject of films and books and yet it seemed to be a very personal reaction to the breakdown of her marriage, which resulted in her fleeing and causing a huge hunt.

A recent novel, A Talent for Murder recently used the event as the basis for a murder mystery starring Christie herself.

Thanks for opening these threads, Susan - I've just read this too - who else is reading it? Even if you aren't reading the book, thee is lots to discuss about the disappearance!

Absolutely. I think this is one buddy read where everyone can get involved, whether they have read the book or not.

I'm not planning on reading the book but am looking forward to the discussion. It seems such a low point in a happy life. I read her memoir about going on digs with her second husband (probably should have posted this in the spoiler thread!).

Come, Tell Me How You Live is a lovely read, Sandy.

I will post something about this issue on the spoiler thread though, Sandy.

Not sure if these links will work outside the UK, but here is a link to a good documentary about Agatha Christie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUmbf...

Also a link about her disappearance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOWNv...

Thanks for those links, Susan, I'll look forward to watching them.

I thought from the title that the book would be all about the disappearance, but in fact it also covers Agatha's life before and after - I think the aim is to look at what led up to the disappearance and then how it affected her later life.

I found the writing style in the early chapters jumped around a lot and was a bit hard to get into, but it gets much better as soon as he gets on to the 11 missing days and that whole section is fascinating!

I think the author tried to build a book around the event, but actually it was hard to make that interesting. Yes, it resulted in a massive search, and news story, but the reasons behind it were quite sad and just left you feeling it got out of hand.

I'm following these threads though I haven't read the book. Such a fascinating subject.

Feel free to join in, Carol. It isn't necessary to have read the book - I've put some links up for various films/articles about the incident.

Having read this, I was left wondering why, exactly, Christie did disappear? Did she subconsciously hope Archie would search for her? Did she hope he would be accused of her murder? Or was it an attempt at publicity (which I doubt)? What do you think?

I get the impression the disappearance is quite closely linked to the brilliant mind that thought up all those plots - it is almost amazingly similar to the type of puzzle that is posed in her books!

I definitely don't think it was a publicity stunt, even though it did actually result in a lot of publicity and helped her career. I think it was some kind of attempt to punish/worry Archie - I'll go away and then you'll be sorry. But I wonder just how well she had thought out what would happen next? Anyway I will say more over on the spoiler thread...

There was an interesting article in the Guardian books blog this week about misleading newspaper coverage of the disappearance, then and now, by Andrew Wilson, author of A Talent for Murder.

He has been left fuming after a newspaper article was published with a headline suggesting his novel was a new biography and that he had "solved" the mystery of the disappearance!

https://www.theguardian.com/books/boo...

I've also just found the original article about the disappearance, in the Telegraph, which now has a corrected headline:

WARNING - this article seems somewhat spoilerish for A Talent for Murder, though, and also for Unfinished Portrait, a novel I haven't read by Christie published under the name Mary Westmacott.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/...

Thanks for the links, Judy. How odd that the novel was seen as a biography. I wonder if it was reviewed and, if so, whether the reviewer actually read it?!

It was interesting that, if the original news articles, Christie was not named. She was not yet famous enough to be 'Agatha Christie' but was an unnamed author. Yet, her fame after this meant that she ended up writing under the name 'Christie' for the rest of her professional life. I wonder what Archie thought of that?

That is interesting, Susan - I was assuming the reason she didn't change back to her maiden name was tbat she was already well known as an author! How important do you think the disappearance was in establishing her fame? I think her books are now more famous than her life.

She did want to change her name after her divorce, but the publisher said she was too well known as Agatha Christie. She was on her fourth book at the time of the disappearance, I think, so not yet really established.

There's a review of 'A Talent for Murder' in the Guardian today - it makes the book sound very good.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

Yes, it's a good book. I've read some other books by him too - he is a good author. He has written a lot of non fiction/biographies too.

Susan wrote: "She did want to change her name after her divorce, but the publisher said she was too well known as Agatha Christie. She was on her fourth book at the time of the disappearance, I think, so not yet..."

I think Agatha Miller would have had a ring to it too...

I can't think of her as anything but Agatha Christie now, which is, I guess, the point. It works so well.