SECRET ADVERSARYTHE

Tommy and Tuppence meet up after WWI. They decide to go into partnership with each other and become involved in the case of Jane Fin. Their adversary is Mr. Brown. Towards the end of the book it becomes fairly clear who Mr. Brown has to be, and he is certainly in a position where he has both means and opportunity to hunt for power. But as usual, Tommy and Tuppence are up to the task.

A good old-fashioned ending to a mystery. The bad guy is caught and the good guys survive and go on making the world a better place. This is an entertaining read that I recommend to any and all.


NO SECRET HERE - A FINE VOICE PERFORMANCE   August 11, 2004
 8 out of 10 found this review helpful

Popular performer Samantha Bond uses her wonderful British voice to best advantage in reading this -not-too-heavy tale by the doyenne of mysteries, Agatha Christie.

Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley suffer from a common malady - they need money. So, being an imaginative pair they decide to hire themselves out as adventurers, if you will, able and ready to tackle anything for a sum.

Better be careful what you ask for - they're retained by the evil Mr. Whittington who is a threat not only to Great Britain but also to our impecunious pair.

As they say, two heads are better than one but Tommy and Tuppence must use all the brainpower each possesses to get out of this scrape.

The dialogue features frequent feasts of repartee - a thoroughly entertaining listen.

- Gail Cooke


An early Christie caper.   March 3, 2004
 20 out of 21 found this review helpful

Moving into a writing career that was to make her the world's most published author, Agatha Christie sent this book to her publisher in the early 1920s.

Already her strengths are evident: her gift for story telling, her ability to engage a likely readership aged from 8 to 80, her ability to pull a fast one on her readers, and her ability to reproduce actual ordinary conversation. In the 1920s it was normal to hear young adults calling each other "Old Bean" and "Old Thing", and they do so here. A weakness still is her inability to devise a means of dispensing with the requirement for long explanations, at the end of a mystery novel

"The Secret Adversary" is not a pure mystery novel, however. It is part romance, part adventure, part ripping yarn, part thriller, and part whodunit. Agatha Christie takes up some of the props found in each of these types of fiction. There are the lively young adults, Tommy and Tuppence, eager to make ends meet by undertaking a little detective work. There is the hunt for a secret document that will determine the fate of the great nations of the world. There are the apparent adversaries ("The German" is one of them), and the incredible eavesdropping and kidnapping situations.

Avid Christie readers will want to sample this early work, but general readers should choose from her productions of the 1930s.


Christie at her best!   August 31, 2002
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Having startd their "Young Adventurers" agency, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford soon find themselves thrust into the world of international espionage. With only the name of a girl as possible a clue, the young adventurers meet with more danger than they bargained for, especially when it becomes clear that someone in their confidence may be working against them.... This is certainly one of the best Christie books, with plenty of twists and turns along the way. A very ingenious plot!