BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS
UK publication: 1968 (Collins)
US publication: 1968 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Tommy & Tuppence Beresford
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: Tommy and Tuppence make their first appearance since the Second World War, now an elderly married couple, 70 years old. Still seeking adventure, the pair have gone to visit an aunt in a nursing home, where another queer elderly inmate implies that there is a child walled up in the fireplace. The aunt's death some weeks later gives Tommy an excuse to try to investigate this crime in the past. The light and frivolous tone of Christie's Tommy and Tuppence books continues unchanged, and Christie's comic salute to old age makes cheerful reading, although conversations tend to meander and irrelevant details intrude more than they used to.
N OR M?
UK publication: 1941 (Collins)
US publication: 1941 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Tommy & Tuppence Beresford
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: The first Christie novel to be set in the Second World War. Tommy and Tuppence Beresford now have a grownup son and daughter, and are too old for the war effort; finally, to their delight, they are informally asked by the Secret Service to assist in the rounding up of a group of Fifth Columnists. Their old errandboy, Albert, now a pub owner, agrees to help them again, and they discover the identity of the chief spy and foil the enemy plans. Perhaps the least convincing of the Beresfords' adventures; nevertheless, easy to read.
POSTERN OF FATE
UK publication: 1973 (Collins)
US publication: 1973 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Tommy & Tuppence Beresford
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: The last novel Christie wrote. A rambling and self-indulgent piece of work, with a lot of incoherence and inconsistency. Tommy and Tuppence, aged and creaky, have moved into a new house with their ever-faithful servant Albert Batt. Tuppence is sorting some old books when she finds a message concealed in a children's novel, which asserts that "Mary Jordan did not die naturally". She sets out to investigate the past crime, and after eighteen chapters, the plot picks up when a minor character is killed and it appears that the miscreants are still active. Colonel Pikeaway of the Special Branch and the financier Mr. Robinson appear here, both formerly associated with Poirot. The denouement is vague and a number of clues are never explained.
THE SECRET ADVERSARY
UK publication: 1922 (John Lane, The Bodley Head)
US publication: 1922 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Tommy & Tuppence Beresford
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: More of a thriller than a mystery, in which the Beresfords-to-be enter the world of international espionage. Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley are childhood friends in their 20s recently demobilized from the war, who meet by accident and are recruited by the Secret Service to save the country. Their task is to trace a girl (Jane Finn) who escaped from the sinking of the Lusitania with Allied documents which must now be found and suppressed; the puzzle is to identify their adversary (actually a master international criminal and spy) among the various characters they encounter (including Julius Hersheimmer, an American millionaire and Jane's cousin, Sir James Peel Edgerton, a distinguished barrister, and Albert, a lift-boy). Tommy and Tuppence are good friends throughout the story, but reveal their deeper feelings for one another at the end (although marriage is not yet on the horizon). The story is also an interesting picture of the post-war social instability in England. It was eventually (1928) made into a film in Germany, "Die Abenteuer GmbH".