The Secret Adversary (TSS)

Title: The Secret Adversary
Author: Agatha Christie
Publication Year: 1922
Pages: 229
Genre: Mystery
Count for Year: 4

How I discovered

I have joined Kerrie from Mysteries in Paradise with her Agatha Christie Reading Challenge and this is the second book that Christie wrote and second in that challenge. I don’t believe I have read this one previously.

The setup

Set in 1919, young couple Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley form a partnership, hiring themselves out as “young adventurers.” Their first case, however, is more of an adventure than they expect – working to find documents that, if they were known to the general public, would fuel a communist revolution in Britain. Undercover agents Tommy and Tuppence know that Jane Finn was carrying top secret documents when she disappeared five years ago. What they don’t know is that a killer is targeting a sinister older woman because she knows all about Jane. Soon Tommy and Tuppence are in grave danger.

– from Barnes & Nobles (click on cover for more information)

After getting off to an excellent start in The Mysterious Affair at Styles and the introduction of her most famous character Hercule Poirot, Christie goes in a different direction for this one: an espionage thriller. I must admit that I did something I rarely do and read a review ahead of time, namely Kerrie’s. I can’t say that I wasn’t influenced by her opinion of the book more than a little. On my own, I thought “The Secret Adversary” was too easy to spot after one over-the-top melodramatic scene.

Of course, I may have been jaded by the opening lines of the book, which betrayed a more light-hearted tone than her first book:

“Tommy, old thing!”

“Tuppence, old  bean!”

Of course, that, in addition to Kerrie’s review as I previously mentioned, was a tip-off to the silliness that was to come.

Much of the dialogue is silly and reads like a script for an earlier espionage movie, say, from Alfred Hitchcock, before his masterpieces were done. Or it reads like a Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew adventure. Of course, Christie provides a serious backdrop to the whole situation, incorporating elements of the sinking of the Lusitania and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. For example, in this paragraph, Mr. Carter, a British secret agent, explains to Tuppence that there is a Bolshevist influnence at work behind Labour unrest:

“That is the truth. Bolshevist gold is  pouring into the country for the specific purpose of procuring a Revolution. And there is a certain man, a man whose real name is unknown to us, who is working in the dark for his own ends. The Bolshevists are behind the Labour unrest– but this man is behind the Bolshevists. Who is he? We do not know. He is always spoken of by the unassuming title of ‘Mr. Brown.’ But one thing is certain, he is the master criminal of this age. He controls a marvellous organization. Most of the Peace propaganda during the war was originated and financed by him. His spies are everywhere.”

If this was a radio play, you would half-expect to hear dramatic music at that end of that. Dah, dah, dah– with a heavy accent on the last “dah.”

Like in her first book, Christie uses what became her trademark: the red herring, but this time to not as much success as it is easy to figure out the identity of “The Secret Adversary.” The only reason to finish the book is to go “a-ha, I knew it!” and especially with that exclamation point! as Christie, I’m learning already is overly fond of the exclamation point! I don’t know why!

Since overall, I thought the book was a silly dalliance in comparison to her last book, I’m not going to spend a lot of time on the review of this one. However, I still thought the book was worth picking up at the library to read, if not else for the amusement factor, and for Agatha Christie completists, it is necessary as it  shows a great contrast with her first novel and later novels.

My rating: a 3.

My rating system:

5- Classic, must read
4- Worth owning a copy
3- Worth picking up at library
2- Worth skimming at the bookstore
1- Worth being a doorstop

P.S. Later today, I will return to The Sunday Salon as I discuss The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O’Connor, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1962 for the novel about an alcoholic priest.

The O’connor book also will count toward the ongoing challenge, The Pulitzer Project.