[Review] Laura Thomson: 'Agatha Christie: An English Mystery'

In 2007, a century had passed since Agatha Christie published her first novel, 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd', and introduced the world to Hercule Poirot. Laura Thompson’s biography vividly recreates the Edwardian world of Christie’s upbringing, examines her key relationships, including those with her two husbands and her daughter, and delves into the lingering mysteries of her life, most notably her infamous eleven-day disappearance in 1926.

Writing about Agatha Christie is itself an exercise worthy of Hercule Poirot or Jane Maprle, but Thompson approaches the task with impressive resources: she had full access to Christie’s letters, papers, and writing notebooks, plus several interviews with her grandson, daughter, son-in-law, and other family members.

The result is a rich portrait that illuminates both the meticulous craftsmanship of Christie’s detective fiction and the complexities of her private life.

Thompson’s substantial and well-researched biography leans heavily into psychological insight, echoing Hercule Poirot’s own fascination with 'the psychology of the individual'. She mounts a spirited defence of Christie’s work against critics who have dismissed or misrepresented it, while candidly acknowledging its uneven quality. The book draws extensively on primary sources and family testimony (including from her late daughter Rosalind), and frequently quotes from the novels themselves, particularly Agatha Cristie's semi-autobiographical novel 'Unfinished Portrait', whitten under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott.

A large section is devoted to the 1926 disappearance, for which Thompson offers a not a very convincing explanation. She rejects the family’s long-held assumption, amnesia, as implausible. Instead, she portrays a woman in deep distress over her husband Archie’s request for a divorce, and who simply walked away for a time, possibly hoping to jolt him into reconsidering. 'This wasn't a nervous breakdown', writes Thompson, 'she simply thought that Archie would come running'. When she was eventually found at a Yorkshire spa hotel, but registered under a false name, the press and public savagely turned on her like a pack of wolves on a startled deer. Thompson rightly notes how harshly society judged women who appeared to step out of line, which would be even more brutal in today’s age of trial by social media.

The biography also addresses Christie’s snobberies and prejudices, presenting them as typical of her era, yet somewhat more nuanced than often portrayed elsewhere. However, some of Thompson’s modern parallels (such as comparing Christie’s treatment to that of Brexiteers) feel strained and even fabricated. I also found the repeated emphasis on Christie’s weight gain and fading 'youthful attractiveness', with remarks like calling her 'a woman of substance… a little too much substance', rather tiresome, especially when used to partly explain Archie’s infidelity.

Despite these reservations, Thompson’s biography was a fascinating and insightful read, only surpassed by Lucy Worsley's 'Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman'.