The Secret Adversary

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 268
Series: Tommy & Tuppence #1
Rating:

Synopsis:

Set in 1919, young couple Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley form a partnership, hiring themselves out as "young adventurers." Their first case, however, is more of an adventure than they expect -- working to find documents that, if they were known to the general public, would fuel a communist revolution in Britain.

Agatha Christie’s The Secret Adversary has aged fairly badly in a number of ways, with her right-wing politics on display and various classic stereotypes. It’s the first Tommy and Tuppence book, and it was interesting to read it in light of the biography of her I read recently: written during her first marriage, Tommy and Tuppence have elements of Agatha and Archie.

The more of Christie’s work I read, though, the less I seem to like it… The plotting just isn’t as good as people would lead you to believe. Could I do better? Probably not, but I can point to a number of writers who could. It’s entertaining, and I can understand people who get attached to her characters, but it leaves me cold. Once she’s tricked you once, it’s easy to see through her other misdirections; even if you don’t quite know where things are going to land, you can at least say “nah, that’s just a red herring”.

So overall, it was alright, but I think I’ll wrap up my reading of Christie’s work once I get to the end of the ones available in Serial Reader, at least for now.

Rating: 3/5