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The strange disappearance of Mrs Agatha Christie (2022)

blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk

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Re: The strange disappearance of Mrs Agatha Christie (2022)

#11

Post by Waterluvian »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #8

> The written answer from the Home Secretary was that ‘No members of the Metropolitan Police were specially detailed for the purpose, and no cost was incurred by the Metropolitan Police …’ Then > Agatha’s husband, Archie Christie, responded to enquiries about his wife’s state of mind by explaining that she was suffering from a nervous disorder and memory loss. The police approached him to request a contribution towar…

When being a liar has no consequences, your profession never gets any good at it.

Re: The strange disappearance of Mrs Agatha Christie (2022)

#12

Post by ruph123 »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #10

Quite the story! I never heard about this before, and I’m a huge fan (admittedly that’s fan of the books though, rather than the author herself). The story/novel mentioned in the article (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd) is famous in literary circles for $reasons - if you haven’t read it and you enjoy reading that sort of book, you’re missing out! (It does look like she staged a murder scene from her books intending to f…

I have read similar recommendations about the book and read it because of those.

The problem is that if you recommend the book for it's "unique plot twist", the reader will keep looking for clues on how the resution may not be the most obvious and figure it out pretty fast. Then it is actually no surprise at all anymore. At least this happenend to me.

It would serve the book better if it was recommended as a great (but traditional) murder mystery novel and that's it.

Re: The strange disappearance of Mrs Agatha Christie (2022)

#13

Post by ComputerGuru »

ruph123 wrote: post #12
ComputerGuru wrote: post #10

Quite the story! I never heard about this before, and I’m a huge fan (admittedly that’s fan of the books though, rather than the author herself). The story/novel mentioned in the article (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd) is famous in literary circles for $reasons - if you haven’t read it and you enjoy reading that sort of book, you’re missing out! (It does look like she staged a murder scene from her books intending to f…

I have read similar recommendations about the book and read it because of those. The problem is that if you recommend the book for it's "unique plot twist", the reader will keep looking for clues on how the resution may not be the most obvious and figure it out pretty fast. Then it is actually no surprise at all anymore. At least this happenend to me. It would serve the book better if it was recommended as a great (b…

That's a fair point. I've lightly edited my recommendation accordingly :)

I read it making my way down a random list of "greatest books of the 20th century" without any expectations; I should probably offer others the same courtesy.

Re: The strange disappearance of Mrs Agatha Christie (2022)

#14

Post by ivanbakel »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #8

> The written answer from the Home Secretary was that ‘No members of the Metropolitan Police were specially detailed for the purpose, and no cost was incurred by the Metropolitan Police …’ Then > Agatha’s husband, Archie Christie, responded to enquiries about his wife’s state of mind by explaining that she was suffering from a nervous disorder and memory loss. The police approached him to request a contribution towar…

England has no national police force. The Metropolitan Police operate only in London (hence the name.) Christie disappeared in Surrey, which had (and has) its own territorial force, the Surrey Police.

Note in particular the concern was that multiple forces had been involved in the search i.e. more than just the Surrey Police, and therefore the concern that London police resources had been spent unnecessarily in the search - hence the question to the Home Secretary.

Re: The strange disappearance of Mrs Agatha Christie (2022)

#16

Post by hackernewds »

ruph123 wrote: post #12
ComputerGuru wrote: post #10

Quite the story! I never heard about this before, and I’m a huge fan (admittedly that’s fan of the books though, rather than the author herself). The story/novel mentioned in the article (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd) is famous in literary circles for $reasons - if you haven’t read it and you enjoy reading that sort of book, you’re missing out! (It does look like she staged a murder scene from her books intending to f…

I have read similar recommendations about the book and read it because of those. The problem is that if you recommend the book for it's "unique plot twist", the reader will keep looking for clues on how the resution may not be the most obvious and figure it out pretty fast. Then it is actually no surprise at all anymore. At least this happenend to me. It would serve the book better if it was recommended as a great (b…

Hey that's a very good point. My friends often will say "just wait for the twist" and are confounded why that is a spoiler

Re: The strange disappearance of Mrs Agatha Christie (2022)

#17

Post by computator »

The headline in the Daily Mirror in the article says, "Mystery of Woman Novelist's Disappearance", which tells me that she was much less famous in 1926 than she is today. Any headline about her today would have used her name (just as the feature article and the Hacker News title did).

Re: The strange disappearance of Mrs Agatha Christie (2022)

#19

Post by ycan »

> Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was a keen spiritualist, even consulted a medium to attempt to solve the mystery of her disappearance.

This bit was the most surprising part of the article for me, given the themes of science and materialism in Sherlock Holmes books. Looking a bit into it, Doyle really seems to have been into Spiritualism for some bizarre reason [0].

[0] https://arthurconandoyle.co.uk/spiritualist

Re: The strange disappearance of Mrs Agatha Christie (2022)

#20

Post by boomskats »

Newlands Corner sits at the top of a pretty steep hill by UK countryside standards, so it's not that unlikely that a 1920s car would have struggled around there. I just cycled up that hill earlier today and it wasn't fun. There are a few photos around [0] from the original incident.

However, the whole thing is fairly universally assumed to have been a publicity stunt. This is a fairly well known story locally. Here's a local tabloid [1] with a few original newspaper articles, and a sprinkling of sensationalism for good measure.

[0]: https://www.prints-online.com/agatha-christies-abandoned-mot... [1]: https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/nostalgia/agatha-christies-...

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