The Secret Adversary

Title: The Secret Adversary

Author: Agatha Christie

Summary:   Tommy and Tuppence, two young people who had survived the war, get together and try to make some money.  A case comes up at once:  a man wants Tuppence to assume a false identity and live in France.  When he asks her name, she decides that she had better not tell him, so she takes one that Tommy had told her about the other day, Jane Finn.  The man starts up and begins getting scared.  This all leads into a quest for the real Jane Finn, who had been handed important papers by an agent at the sinking of the Lusitania.  These papers, if published, could begin the overthrow of the English Government.  Some people want these papers to publish them.  The secret society is headed up by a criminal genius who goes by "Mr. Brown."  With the aid of an acclaimed KC and an American millionaire (cousin of Jane Finn), they try to track down the leader.  The person who turns out to be the criminal is - as always with Christie's novels - extremely unexpected.  (Except . . . I expected that he/she was the criminal halfway through the book.  Either it wasn't that unexpected, or I'm very perceptive.  I'm tempted to believe the latter, but common sense tells me that Christie wasn't at her best in this novel.)  

Stars: 8.  Definitely not one of Christie's best novels.  The coincidences were a little too much for me.  

Violence: 5 for threatening people with firearms and whacking people on the head with heavy objects.  Oh, and old knocking people out with the stuff in a handkerchief (they inhale it, and they get knocked out).  

Romance: 5 for several proposals - at least three.  No graphic physicalities.  

Language: 6, for h--l and related expletives.  

Appropriate for:  Teen/adult

Other: