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3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
Agatha Christie, The Secret Adversary (Dodd, Mead, 1922)
The good thing about buying a Kobo: it came pre-loaded with one hundred classic (read: out-of-copyright) books, most of which were either obscure titles by authors I knew, stuff I'd outright never heard of, or stuff “I mean to get around reading sometime in the future”. The bad part about buying a Kobo: they were all in some weird format that didn't make sense to anything but Kobo. So after a long night of erasing the weird proprietary format, pulling them all off Project Gutenberg, and reloading them, I was ready to get started. I just didn't know where to go. My clumsiness decided for me; I was reading something else, I no longer remember quite what, and I clicked on The Secret Adversary instead. So from then until I finished the books in front of it, it sat there taunting me on the “I'm currently reading” screen saying “1% finished.” Which it was going to keep doing short of my deleting it—again—and reloading it—again. At which point I decided it would be the first classic I tackled. (I'm quite glad I didn't accidentally click on the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which I'm saving for when I have a terminal illness and need to bargain with Death.)
The first of Christie's five books to feature amateur sleuths Tommy (Beresford) and Tuppence (Crowley), The Secret Adversary begins with our hero and heroine, without a dime to their name, deciding on a lark to becomeadventurers. They are overheard, by coincidence, by someone in need of one. Which unleashes quite a powerful raft of coincidences, but I'm getting ahead of myself. In any case, they're hired to find a missing girl and the documents she was carrying, which are very secret and could do irreparable harm to the government were they to get out. (Of course, the bad guys are also looking for them.) The search involves a good deal of chasing, being chased, secret meetings with highly-placed government contacts, infiltrating communist cells, a stereotypical Texan with unlimited funds (the missing girl's cousin), and, of course, all kinds of romance.
Give Ms. Christie one thing—once the pedal hits the floor in this book, which is does roundabout Chapter Three, it doesn't let up until the very end. The pace is breakneck in the extreme, the excitement is always palpable, and the identity of “Mr. Brown”, the head of the conspiracy arrayed against our young folks, will keep you guessing until the (overly-dramatic, to be sure) Big Reveal. As a straight-up genre mystery, it's got all the hallmarks, and will keep you turning the pages.
On the other hand, it's an early novel, the second she ever published. It relies on the raft of coincidences I mentioned before to advance major plot points, the minor characters are stereotypes of the highest order, and one can detect a touch of paranoid ethnocentrism in a number of Christie's depictions of the members of the Bolshevik Conspiracy(TM) arrayed against Tommy and Tuppence (“He was fair, with a weak, unpleasant face, and Tommy put him down as being either a Russian or a Pole”, for example). Of course, whether Christie was caught up in the politics of the day or lampooning them is for the reader to decide, but I didn't really see anything to indicate the latter myself.
Genre fiction that doesn't aspire to be anything else, and that's not a bad thing, but ninety years later some of it may make you a bit uncomfortable; recommended, but proceed with caution. ** ½
The good thing about buying a Kobo: it came pre-loaded with one hundred classic (read: out-of-copyright) books, most of which were either obscure titles by authors I knew, stuff I'd outright never heard of, or stuff “I mean to get around reading sometime in the future”. The bad part about buying a Kobo: they were all in some weird format that didn't make sense to anything but Kobo. So after a long night of erasing the weird proprietary format, pulling them all off Project Gutenberg, and reloading them, I was ready to get started. I just didn't know where to go. My clumsiness decided for me; I was reading something else, I no longer remember quite what, and I clicked on The Secret Adversary instead. So from then until I finished the books in front of it, it sat there taunting me on the “I'm currently reading” screen saying “1% finished.” Which it was going to keep doing short of my deleting it—again—and reloading it—again. At which point I decided it would be the first classic I tackled. (I'm quite glad I didn't accidentally click on the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which I'm saving for when I have a terminal illness and need to bargain with Death.)
The first of Christie's five books to feature amateur sleuths Tommy (Beresford) and Tuppence (Crowley), The Secret Adversary begins with our hero and heroine, without a dime to their name, deciding on a lark to becomeadventurers. They are overheard, by coincidence, by someone in need of one. Which unleashes quite a powerful raft of coincidences, but I'm getting ahead of myself. In any case, they're hired to find a missing girl and the documents she was carrying, which are very secret and could do irreparable harm to the government were they to get out. (Of course, the bad guys are also looking for them.) The search involves a good deal of chasing, being chased, secret meetings with highly-placed government contacts, infiltrating communist cells, a stereotypical Texan with unlimited funds (the missing girl's cousin), and, of course, all kinds of romance.
Give Ms. Christie one thing—once the pedal hits the floor in this book, which is does roundabout Chapter Three, it doesn't let up until the very end. The pace is breakneck in the extreme, the excitement is always palpable, and the identity of “Mr. Brown”, the head of the conspiracy arrayed against our young folks, will keep you guessing until the (overly-dramatic, to be sure) Big Reveal. As a straight-up genre mystery, it's got all the hallmarks, and will keep you turning the pages.
On the other hand, it's an early novel, the second she ever published. It relies on the raft of coincidences I mentioned before to advance major plot points, the minor characters are stereotypes of the highest order, and one can detect a touch of paranoid ethnocentrism in a number of Christie's depictions of the members of the Bolshevik Conspiracy(TM) arrayed against Tommy and Tuppence (“He was fair, with a weak, unpleasant face, and Tommy put him down as being either a Russian or a Pole”, for example). Of course, whether Christie was caught up in the politics of the day or lampooning them is for the reader to decide, but I didn't really see anything to indicate the latter myself.
Genre fiction that doesn't aspire to be anything else, and that's not a bad thing, but ninety years later some of it may make you a bit uncomfortable; recommended, but proceed with caution. ** ½
I do love Tommy and Tuppence! They are the perfect detecting duo. This is my favorite of their books.
Rating: 3* of five for both book and movie
The Publisher Says: After WW1, childhood pals Tommy Beresford and "Tuppence" Prudence Cowley, lack money and prospects, become adventurers for the British Government. Rich American Julius P. Hersheimmer, powerful Mr Whittington, and an evil mastermind's conspiracy all seek Jane Finn, given papers vital to peace by an agent at the sinking of the Luisitania. Kidnaps, escapes.
My Review: The novel is a dated piece, lots of hoopla about Bolsheviks and the General Strike and Socialism!! Socialism!! Tuppence is a right little minx. Tommy is a public school boy in the most English sense of those words. It was, I suppose, delicious in 1922 for a mere woman to be the instigator of an adventurous life for the borning couple on the other side of the law; that she doesn't have to Pay Dearly For It is truly eyebrow-raising.
Sixty years later, along comes Francesca Annis to embody Tuppence, and speak the faithfully adapted words Dame Agatha wrote. Annis is just lovely. She does a marvelous job of scheming behind a melting smile. But all the to-ing and fro-ing! Just-missed-'em and who-said-what moments galore. It creaks, in other words, to more savvy modern ears, very much the way Mary Roberts Rinehart's books do, or Georgette Heyer's mysteries do.
All that said, however, I didn't hurl the book aside or stop the film. Because in the end, it was fun. Just a bit silly, but still fun, and to me that's worth a lot. But the Big Reveal is just so durned obvious! And the American character so, so buffoonish! Oh well, autres temps autres moeurs. It doesn't do to apply too much modern sensibility to olden days. But I will say this to modern audiences: Either medium, go in expecting a relaxed pace (the film is 2 hours!) and you'll be better off by the end.
The chase scene with a 1915 Rolls-Royce amazed me.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
The Publisher Says: After WW1, childhood pals Tommy Beresford and "Tuppence" Prudence Cowley, lack money and prospects, become adventurers for the British Government. Rich American Julius P. Hersheimmer, powerful Mr Whittington, and an evil mastermind's conspiracy all seek Jane Finn, given papers vital to peace by an agent at the sinking of the Luisitania. Kidnaps, escapes.
My Review: The novel is a dated piece, lots of hoopla about Bolsheviks and the General Strike and Socialism!! Socialism!! Tuppence is a right little minx. Tommy is a public school boy in the most English sense of those words. It was, I suppose, delicious in 1922 for a mere woman to be the instigator of an adventurous life for the borning couple on the other side of the law; that she doesn't have to Pay Dearly For It is truly eyebrow-raising.
Sixty years later, along comes Francesca Annis to embody Tuppence, and speak the faithfully adapted words Dame Agatha wrote. Annis is just lovely. She does a marvelous job of scheming behind a melting smile. But all the to-ing and fro-ing! Just-missed-'em and who-said-what moments galore. It creaks, in other words, to more savvy modern ears, very much the way Mary Roberts Rinehart's books do, or Georgette Heyer's mysteries do.
All that said, however, I didn't hurl the book aside or stop the film. Because in the end, it was fun. Just a bit silly, but still fun, and to me that's worth a lot. But the Big Reveal is just so durned obvious! And the American character so, so buffoonish! Oh well, autres temps autres moeurs. It doesn't do to apply too much modern sensibility to olden days. But I will say this to modern audiences: Either medium, go in expecting a relaxed pace (the film is 2 hours!) and you'll be better off by the end.
The chase scene with a 1915 Rolls-Royce amazed me.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
It was singularly thrilling! I wish Christie'd written more books on them rather than Poirot.
I guessed it had to be either Sir Peel Edgerton or Julius after the woman died. I'm not sure if it was too easy, or I just have magnificent powers of observation. (It's probably the former) It took me a while to figure out it was Sir Peel Edgerton, but she had me proper at the twist. I fell for it, even though I had some niggling doubts. One of those was the marriage proposal, because I just couldn't see Mr Brown doing that, whether or not he was a funny chap like in The Man in the Brown Suit. Anyway, I can't wait to get my hands on the next T&T!
I guessed it had to be either Sir Peel Edgerton or Julius after the woman died. I'm not sure if it was too easy, or I just have magnificent powers of observation. (It's probably the former) It took me a while to figure out it was Sir Peel Edgerton, but she had me proper at the twist. I fell for it, even though I had some niggling doubts. One of those was the marriage proposal, because I just couldn't see Mr Brown doing that, whether or not he was a funny chap like in The Man in the Brown Suit. Anyway, I can't wait to get my hands on the next T&T!
Even though the secret adversary is fairly obvious from early on, I loved the relationship between the two main characters and I loved the pace the book has. Four stars!
First sentence:
IT was 2 p.m. on the afternoon of May 7, 1915. The Lusitania had been struck by two torpedoes in succession and was sinking rapidly, while the boats were being launched with all possible speed.
Lovely first book of the series Tommy&Tuppence, a young adventurers couple involved in a espionage story involving the Lusitania's shipwreck.
Free download available at ManyBooks.net.
IT was 2 p.m. on the afternoon of May 7, 1915. The Lusitania had been struck by two torpedoes in succession and was sinking rapidly, while the boats were being launched with all possible speed.
Lovely first book of the series Tommy&Tuppence, a young adventurers couple involved in a espionage story involving the Lusitania's shipwreck.
Free download available at ManyBooks.net.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
First time reading a Tommy and Tuppence mystery. Good start to the series.
This is definitely one of Agatha Christie's weaker novels, but it's also worth remembering that this was just her second novel. "The Secret Adversary" is the only Christie novel I've read that deals with political espionage, and it's honestly not that great. The plot - which deals with a possible communist takeover in the British government - isn't very interesting, nor are most of the characters we meet. The exceptions, of course, are our protagonists Tommy and Tuppence. It's their relationship that saves this novel from being a total snoozefest, but unfortunately for much of the novel they are separated. When they are together, there's a lot of fun dialogue between the two. The novel could have used some more scenes between them, especially in the second half when the plot really starts to drag.
Not the books I can listen to. I liked what I recall but I don’t recall enough to give it a rating.