E-Book, 324 Pages
Adult/ Thriller
By: Agatha Christie
Rating: 🌟🌟
“Never tell all you know—not even to the person you know best.”
My ritual of reading one Christie novel per month is still going and this time, I decided to read one of her earlier works. In fact, this is her second novel and it follows Tommy and Tuppence and not the usual Poirot or Miss Marple and unfortunately I wasn’t a big fan.
This book was written in 1922 which is exactly a century ago. I thought I did not enjoy it very much because it is one of her earlier works and she was still discovering her voice as an author but I loved her first ever novel (The Mysterious Affair at Styles) so it is not for that sole reason.
Writing wise, I think the prose is not bad, I never have problems with Christie’s prose and I am usually left in awe by how “modern” the voice is. But the problem with this one was that it is more of a spy novel with thriller elements rather than the classical mystery and whodunit genres. The rest of Christie’s stories that I read were more simple and this one was unnecessarily convoluted.
Finally, I accepted the fact that not any of Christie’s characters will come close to Poirot. He’s just on a whole different level and remains one of my favorite characters in literature. Miss Marple is sneaky and can be entertaining although she’s usually absent for the most of her books. Tommy and Tuppence are a nice couple and they’re weird and unique and I love that but just because it lacked the mystery part, I couldn’t see their brilliance and maybe I will in their next adventure.
Summary: This story ended up disappointing me. It could be due to my usually high expectations of Agatha, it could be due to the fact that it is only her second novel or because of the thriller rather than mystery parts. I hope their next entry convinces me to read more of their adventures.
The book prescription 