"On the Blue Train" by Kristel Thornell

I'm a big fan of Agatha Christie's murder mysteries, though I read them in my pre-blogging days and have never tried to ensure that I've read them all. I really have no idea what percentage of them I may have missed. But I always loved how Christie led me to suspect almost every single character and still managed to surprise me at the end. Her mysteries are, to me, the epitome of the genre, and I compare all others to hers. (Needless to say most of them fall short.)

Though I love the novels she produced, I was never really especially interested in Christie herself--until I heard of the book Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days by Jared Cade. I'd previously been completely unaware of this, but a blurb about that book told me that in 1926, Agatha Christie disappeared without a trace under (dare I say it?) mysterious circumstances. It wasn't a kidnapping (which was where my mind first went) and the true story never seemed to be adequately explained. Ooh! A real-life mystery surrounding the grande dame of mystery novels!

I've been meaning to read Cade's book ever since but have never gotten around to it, which may in part be due to the fact that I somehow acquired the impression it is somewhat tedious and dry. I was torn between wanting to know what happened and not wanting to be bored. So when I heard about Kristel Thornell's version of the story, I was quite excited to read it. From what I could uncover online, it promised to be much more readable.

And I definitely did enjoy it. On the Blue Train is really well-written and interesting. I'm not sure it truly satisfied my curiosity as it's obviously a work of fiction and I wanted to know what really happened, but I've come to the realization that that's probably not possible. I think the only person who knows what really happened is Christie herself, and evidently she never truly opened up about those eleven days. So I'm satisfied with the fact that this is the next best thing: what could have happened, in the guise of a novel that is enjoyable and engaging.