A book club choice that received mixed reviews in our discussion: I would normally have returned it to the library after the first 25 or so pages, but I like to honor my book club reading commitments. I've enjoyed many works of historical fiction that are written around the life of real-life person, but this one felt a bit flat. To me, it was clear that Agatha Christie's staged disappearance in 1926 was partly a publicity stunt, and partly a move of revenge against her husband, who had just demanded a divorce. It generated a vast amount of publicity so Christie was successful in grabbing the attention of the public while she dealt with her husband's infidelity and what comes across as his mental cruelty towards her.
The author, Marie Benedict, specializes in bringing the lives of obscure or somewhat-forgotten women to light in her novels. I previously read her book about Albert Einstein's first wife, which claimed that she (also a physicist) was responsible for the Theory of Relativity. I recall that I didn't care much for the book, and found it somewhat unbelievable. Benedict also wrote a novel about the actress Hedy Lamarr, who was also an inventor and scientist – and much more interesting to me. I haven't decided as yet whether or not I'll read it.
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