Torquay Launches Christie Centennial Tour and Hotel Package

One hundred years after Agatha Christie's mysterious disappearance gripped the nation, visitors to her hometown of Torquay, England, can now trace the inspirations behind the works of the renowned crime novelist through a dedicated walking tour and luxury hotel package.

On December 3, 1926, Christie, then 36 and at the height of her fame following the publication of "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd," vanished from her Berkshire home after a heated argument with her husband, Colonel Archibald Christie. He had confessed to an affair with Nancy Neele and sought a divorce. Christie drove away, abandoning her car near Guildford in Surrey with her coat and suitcase inside. The case sparked widespread alarm, drawing 15,000 volunteers to the search and leading to the colonel's brief arrest on suspicion of foul play. Eleven days later, she was recognized by a guest at the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate, where she had checked in under the alias Teresa Neele, the surname of her husband's mistress. Christie attributed the episode to amnesia and omitted it from her 1977 autobiography.

Tour guide Graham Kerr of English Riviera Walking Tours offers insights into the incident during a...