Mantle acquires de Gramont's Agatha Christie-inspired novel in six-figure pre-empt

Mantle has acquired The Christie Affair by American author Nina de Gramont in a six-figure pre-empt. 

The novel will reimagine a real-life historical event: the unexplained 11-day disappearance of Agatha Christie in December 1926. At its core, it is the story of two women – Agatha and Nan – one famous, one not. But Nan is also Agatha’s husband’s mistress and as the novel unfolds, the reader will follow them both through Christie’s notorious disappearance and into the unravelling of a murder mystery.

Maria Rejt, publisher, bought UK and Commonwealth rights from Kerry Nordling at SMP. It will be published in the UK on 6th January 2022 in a global publication campaign with St Martin’s Press in the US. 

Rejt said: "I hope readers will be astounded by this beautiful and heartbreaking novel. The Christie Affair is ingeniously plotted and tantalisingly unguessable, told in a voice that will tug at your heartstrings towards its stunning denouement."

De Gramont is the author of 2013's Meet Me at the River and 2010's Every Little Thing in the World (both Atheneum Books for Young Readers), as well as the story collection Of Cats and Men (Headline Review, 2001) and the adult novel The Gossip of Starlings (Algonquin Books, 2008).