Marie Benedict

Mitzi Maric has always been a little different from other girls. Most twenty-year-olds are wives by now, or studying physics at an elite Zurich university with only male students trying to outdo her clever calculations. But Mitzi is smart enough to know that, for her, math is an easier path than marriage. And then fellow student, Albert Einstein, takes an interest in her, and her world turns sideways. Theirs becomes a partnership of the mind and of the heart, but Albert proves to be less the man than she hoped he’d be.… (más)

Benedict's novel explores a what-if scenario regarding Agatha Christie's stint as a missing person in December 1926. The disappearance of the young, newly-successful author attracted worldwide attention and searches unlike the country had seen before--and also revealed that her husband Archie was engaged in an affair and was preparing to divorce Agatha.

Chapters go back and forth between the present, wherein Archie looks increasingly more suspect in his wife's disappearance, and the past, where Agatha's experiences are laid out in a manuscript. The book intimately focuses on the relationship of Agatha and Archie, and to my frustration, largely focused on Archie. He's a repugnant person. His nastiness is clear right away, and it made the repeated emphases on his awfulness feel tedious. Without delving into spoilers, the end fell flat for me because it set up an expectation for Archie that just didn't make sense with the pressure he's under because of the investigation. The book is manages to be a fast read, helped along by very short chapters.… (más)