The Mystery of Christie

As the town of Harrogate, in North Yorkshire, England, gears up next weekend’s Harrogate Crime Writing Festival (July 20-23), The Times of London reminds us of why the venue for that internationally acclaimed event, the Old Swan Hotel, is so appropriate: It marks the conclusion of a weeklong mystery in the life of mystery writer Agatha Christie. Explains journalist Selina Walker:

On a December evening in 1926 the writer carefully staged an accident, leaving her car hanging over the edge of a chalk pit near Sunningdale, and disappeared. The nationwide manhunt that ensued, which employed aircraft and phone-tapping, is well documented, as is her dramatic reappearance a week later in the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate.

What happened in the intervening days was never explained. We know that she signed in at the hotel under a pseudonym, but little more. One theory is that she suffered amnesia because of a nervous breakdown after her mother’s death and the breakdown of her marriage. She would never speak of the incident.

Read the whole Times article here. And for a bit more information about Christie’s disappearance, refer to this piece by “Straight Dope” columnist Cecil Adams.