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Need a plot summary of The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont? Want a list of characters or an explanation of the ending? The Christie Affair is one part historical fiction, one part backwards mystery, and one part women’s fiction. I have some complicated feelings about the book and want to know what you think! Here’s my Spoiler Discussion and Plot Summary for The Christie Affair
If you love comic mysteries, love books about wedding planners finding love, and love books about big, close-knit families, you probably loved this one. Need a rundown of the Dial A for Aunties plot? I have a character list and a plot summary of Dial A for Aunties. Then come join our spoiler discussion for Dial A for Aunties
If you do NOT want spoilers, come over to my review of Dial A for Aunties . Or just check it out anyway!
The Aunties and the Chen Family
Meddy – the photographer for her family’s wedding planning business
Big Aunt (Da Jie) – pastry chef
Second Aunt – hairstylist
Ma (Natasya) – Meddy’s mother and the florist
Fourth Aunt (Si Mei/”Mimi”)– singer
Other Characters
Jake/Ah Guan – Meddy’s date, who ends up dead
Nathan – Meddy’s college boyfriend
Jacqueline – bride at the wedding
Tom– groom
Maureen – best friend of the bride
Meddy, her mom, and her three Indo-Chinese-American aunties run a wedding planning business in Southern California. Their latest project is a huge wedding for the daughter of an Indonesian textile tycoon and the son of a billionaire. Meddy has sacrificed for her close-knit family, including breaking up with Nathan, her college boyfriend and the love of her life, so she could stay in California and work in the family business as a wedding photographer.
Just before the big wedding, Meddy learns that her mom impersonated her on an online dating site and set up a date for her with a guy named Jake. She meets Jake for dinner. Afterwards, Meddy decides she’s too drunk to drive, so Jake offers to drive her home in her car. While driving, he makes a pass at her and she starts to feel unsafe, so she uses her taser on him and the car crashes.
Meddy regains consciousness and sees Jake next to her, dead. She puts him in the trunk of her car and drives home. Her mother assembles all the aunties to deal with the crisis. They decide to hide him in a cooler inside the walk-in fridge at Big Aunt’s bakery.
The next morning, they learn that the cooler has been moved to the wedding venue, a resort on Santa Lucia, an island off the coast.
Meddy and the aunties head to the island. Meddy is stunned to discover that the owner of the resort hotel is … Nathan. She awkwardly greets him and introduces him to her family. When they find the cooler with the body in it, they discover that Jake was actually alive when they put him inside and had been trying to get out. Now he’s definitely dead. The group decides that Meddy and Fourth Aunt will drive the body back to the mainland. They are rolling the cooler across the island when they run into Nathan, who insists on storing it for them. As Nathan starts to open the cooler, Meddy kisses him to distract him, then puts the cooler back in the walk-in.
Meddy takes photos of the bride and her stunning wedding jewelry. The aunties want to try one more time to move the cooler off the island, but they are thwarted yet again, and decide to stash the cooler in Meddy’s hotel room. They discuss ways to get rid of the body and decide to remove Jake from the cooler and dress him in a groomsman’s suit so they can smuggle him out.
Meddy goes to see the bride, Jacqueline, who is upset that her groom and his groomsmen are very drunk.The bridal party assembles to give the bride and groom lavish gifts. Second Aunt calls Meddy to tell her that Jake’s phone has been ringing. Meddy checks the phone and sees that the bride’s BFF Maureen has been texting and calling Jake. Meddy goes to to look for Maureen and finds a duffel bag filled with stolen wedding jewelry. She figures out that Jake and Maureen were plotting to steal the jewels. Meddy hides the duffel bag of jewels in her closet until she can return it.
Nathan shows up at Meddy’s hotel room to resume their make-out session, but he sees Jake’s body in her room, assumes Meddy is sleeping with someone else, and leaves. Meddy’s mother finds her crying and Meddy tells her about her history with Nathan. They realize that Nathan left his master key card in Meddy’s room.
Maureen calls Jake’s phone and tells him that someone found the duffel bag of jewels and suggests they frame Meddy. But Meddy uses the master key card to hide the duffel in Maureen’s room. Maureen texts Jake’s phone and tells him he better have planted the jewels in Meddy’s room because she’s going to tip off the police. Meddy, panicked because the body is still in her room, calls her mom and tells her to move the body ASAP.
Meddy is summoned by Nathan and told that the wedding gifts are missing and that Maureen says Meddy stole them. Meddy agrees to let security search her room and, when they find nothing, she suggests they search Maureen’s room. The jewels are there, but the bride refuses to press charges.
It’s time for the wedding and, as Meddy prepares to take photos, she realizes that Jake is one of the groomsmen, being propped up Weekend at Bernie’s style. But the groomsmen (who it turns out were hired for the wedding) are all drunk and start falling in the pool. The bride comes to help and Meddy pushes her away, but she also falls in the pool. In all the chaos, someone realizes Jake is dead. The aunties fish Meddy out and confess that they drugged the groomsmen with absinthe spiked with cannibis oil.
The sheriff arrives to investigate Jake’s death, and arrests Nathan. Meddy, upset, confesses to the aunts that she never wanted to be a wedding photographer. Then she goes to the police station and pretends she’s Nathan’s lawyer. She confessed to Nathan that she killed Jake, and he says he figured it out and is sorry that he let her break up with him all those year ago.
Meddy heads back to her room at the resort, where she finds Maureen has tied up all the aunties at gunpoint. Maureen says she knows that Meddy killed Jake and that Meddy needs to get the wedding gifts back for her or she’ll tell everyone. Meddy goes to the bridal suite to find Jacqueline in tears over Maureen’s betrayal. Meddy realizes that Jacqueline is in love with Maureen. She arrives back at her room and tells Maureen that Jacqueline willingly handed over the gifts. Jackie shows up and the two embrace.
Meddy, Jackie, Maureen and the aunties show up at the police station and explain that Jake was trying to steal the gifts, panicked and hid in the cooler, then suffocated and died. Since the police don’t have a better explanation, they let Nathan go.
Meddy gets back together with Nathan. Jacqueline and Maureen get married and Meddy photographs the wedding. Nathan proposes.
What are your thoughts about this one? Talk to me in comments!
Did you read The Maid by Nita Prose and need a plot summary or a list of characters? Looking for a discussion of the plot? Want to talk spoilers? Looking for book club discussion questions? Check out my Spoiler Discussion for The Maid! Also, check out my review of book two in the series, The Mystery Guest!
Did you read A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham ? Do you want to discuss suspects, twists, and the ending? Need a list of characters or a plot summary of in A Flicker in the Dark? Confused or just DYING to talk to someone who’s read the book? Come join our Spoiler Review and Discussion for A Flicker in the Dark
[Read more…]Have you read The Appeal by Janice Hallett? Need someone to discuss that crazy plot and tricky epistolary style with? Have questions about exactly what happened in this sleepy British town? Check out my Spoiler Discussion for The Appeal. Also check out The Christmas Appeal!
Did you read 2 Sisters Detective Agency by James Patterson and Candice Fox and need to discuss the book with someone? Pull up a chair and join the Spoiler Discussion for 2 Sisters Detective Agency!
Jacob, his wife Neina, and his ten year-old daughter Beaty are the victims of a home invasion. During the ordeal, Beaty suffers an asthma attack and the criminals flee, telling Jacob that if his daughter dies, it’s his fault.
Rhonda Bird, a public defender with a unique fashion sense, meets her next client, Thad, who is accused of rape. When the father of Thad’s alleged victim comes at him with a gun, Rhonda tackles him. Then she gets a phone call informing her that her father is dead.
Jacob is told that his daughter’s asthma attack has left her with severe brain damage. He and his wife debate reporting their attack to the police.
Rhonda is told that she must come to Los Angeles to discuss her father’s estate. She hasn’t seen her father in twenty five years.
Jacob works on tracking down his attackers.
Ashton, an aspiring actor, is kidnapped off the street. But his attacker lets him go when the police approach.
Rhonda learns she has a fifteen year-old half sister, Baby. And that she is Baby Bird’s guardian.
No surprise: Jacob was Ashton’s attacker. Jacob finds a video on Ashton’s phone that proves that Jacob has found his family’s attackers.
Baby is an influencer who was abandoned by her mom. She doesn’t want anything to do with Rhonda. The two of them go to their father’s office, Early Bird Investigations.
Ashton knows Baby and shows up at Early Bird asking for help. When he sees Rhonda he leaves. Rhonda finds a bunch of cash hidden under the floor.
Ashton meets his home invasion crew of rich kids: Vera, Penny, Sean, and Benzo. He tells them he was abducted. Vera knows Ashton went to a PI and is not happy about it.
Rhonda is getting a bad feeling about what her father was up to. She finds a key to a storage unit.
Jacob works on tracking down the rest of the crew who terrorized his family. He finds Benzo and begins by shooting him in the leg.
Baby and Rhonda find nothing in the storage unit but another key. Baby suggests checking the navigation unit on their dad’s car, which leads them to a storage container in the desert. It’s a meth lab with a scientist chained inside it
The teen crew is doing another job at their science teacher’s house.
Benzo is dead. Henchmen of Rhonda’s father show up, angry that she let she scientist go. Rhonda beats them up.
Rhonda and Baby drive to the crew’s school to talk to Ashton. Vera shows up and shuts the conversation down. Afterwards, Vera tells the gang they are going to go after Jacob.
Rhonda and Baby narrowly escaped their car catching on fire. Rhonda bribes a crime scene photographer to get photos of Benzo’s case.
Jacob follows Vera. Vera and her crew do a job that ends up in a standoff with the homeowner and them setting the house on fire. Penny is shot and she and Sean flee, with Jacob in pursuit. Sean crashes the car and Jacob kills them both.
Baby throws a party at the house and Rhonda jumps of the roof into the pool.
Vera watches hidden camera footage of their break-in, looking for clues to the man who is hunting them. Ashton shows up at Baby and Rhonda’s, asking for help. He tells them his Midnight Crew terrorizes adults who need to be taught a lesson.
Vera finds Jacob and visits his wife. Vera gets Neina to call Jacob and ask him to come home. On the way, Jacob realizes this was a trap to draw him away from the hospital.
Officer Summersby arrests Rhonda and the police tell her that her father was working with them. At the hospital, Vera starts to strangle Beaty. Two nurses burst in and Vera shoots them. Jacob arrives. He and Vera discuss how similar they are and and he and Vera struggle. He slips and is hanging from a ledge.
Ashton and Baby decide to get Baby’s father’s stash of money and make a run for it in his Maserati, but the cartel henchmen show up.
From the police car, Rhonda voice texts Baby to tell her where the money is. Summersby’s police car is diverted to the hospital, where Jacob dies and Vera escapes. Baby and Ashton get away in the Maserati with the money. Jacob’s daughter wakes up from her coma. Ashton and Baby crash the car while being chased by the henchmen and Ashton is shot dead. Vera goes underground.
Rhonda tells Baby that she will stay in L.A. (to continue her romance with Summersby and act as Baby’s guardian.) Baby and Rhonda decide to start a detective agency. A new client walks into the office.
I’ll admit that I was disappointed by this one. I liked the idea of the two sisters working together, but a lot of the story was pretty underdeveloped: Jacob’s past, Rhonda’s father and what he was doing,
The book suggests that the Midnight Crew picks adults who “need to be taught a lesson.” Why did the Midnight Crew target Jacob and his family?
What was the deal with Jacob’s past?
Given the ending, is this really a standalone, as Goodreads suggests?