The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie

 

Title:  The Secret Adversary

Author:  Agatha Christie

Narrated by:  Emma Fenney

Publisher: Dreamscape Media

Length: Approximately 8 hours and 33 minutes

Source: Checked out with Hoopla through the Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!

 

Do you have any favorite spy novels, shows, or movies?  I always enjoy watching the James Bond movies.

I read The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie in February for #ReadChristie2024.  #ReadChristie2024 has a theme this year of through the decades.  January – March are books written by Agatha Christie in the 1920’s.  The Secret Adversary was Agatha Christie’s second novel published in 1922 and the first novel featuring the detective solving pair, Tommy and Tuppence.  Christie wrote a novel or short story collection about this crime solving duo each decade of her writing career and they aged along with her.  I have read their first two books and I can’t wait to read the rest of their adventures!

The Secret Adversary is set right after the first world war or “The Great War.”  Friends Tommy Beresford and Prudence “Tuppence” Cowley run into each other in London in 1920.  They  discover they are both searching for a job.  They start the “young adventurers” to solve cases.  A man overhearing them talk asks for their help in in finding the missing Jane Finn who disappeared when the  Luisitana sank about five years before and may have had secret government documents with her.  They are off on an adventure that includes foreign agents, the mysterious Mr. Brown, amnesia, kidnapping, proposals, and more.  Will they find Jane and the missing documents?

I really like Tommy and Tuppence and their capers.  This was a fun adventure with witty banter, evil villians, and a lot of action.  It was a lot of fun to me, but it isn’t like her “typical” Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple novels.  I really like the Agatha Christie wrote such different types of mysteries.  I also liked the romance between Tommy and Tuppence.  She wants to marry a rich man and I enjoyed how they both realized their feelings for each other and that they didn’t want her to marry rich when given the chance.  This wasn’t my favorite mystery of Christie’s, but I did really like the fun and adventure.

I really liked the opening line of this novel, “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.”  I thought it was interesting that this book used an event that had happened not too long before it was published.  I was also intrigued to learn that Tommy served in the military and Tuppence was a nurse during the Great War.

I listened to The Secret Adversary on audiobook and Emma Fenney was a great narrator!