Tommy Beresford and Prudence 'Tuppence' Cowley are young, in love… and flat broke. Just after Great War, there are few jobs available and the couple are desperately short of money. Restless for excitement, they decide to embark on a daring business scheme: Young Adventurers Ltd.—"willing to do anything, go anywhere."
MY THOUGHTS:
We are introduced to young job-seekers Tommy and Tuppence, the only Christie characters destined to age through the decades in real time alongside their author. In this debut they are babes in their early twenties, broke and anxious for work. The year is 1920. Tuppence Cowley possesses elfin charm and oodles of self confidence and energy. Tommy Beresford is a 'pleasantly ugly' young ginger who prides himself on his common sense. Friends since childhood, they agree to start a new business venture named 'The Young Adventurers', in which they'll hire themselves out to anyone who needs them.
An eavesdropper soon plunges the pair deep into espionage and danger. These kids must think on their feet and rely on their wits more than they'd ever expected. (So one moral is don't start a business unless you're certain you can deliver on your hype.)
Tommy and Tuppence find themselves embroiled in the search for Jane Finn, a young passenger aboard the sinking Lusitania in 1915, who was entrusted with some vital documents as she boarded a lifeboat. Neither Jane nor the precious, inflammatory papers have been seen for five years and foul play is suspected.
Hot on the trail of the two Ts, who are hot on Jane's trail, is the titular secret adversary, a criminal mastermind who goes by the modest alias, 'Mr Brown.' This slick crook is renowned for popping up in unexpected places, posing as a nonentity. But although others know his methodology in retrospect, nobody has caught him at it. Can the formidable Mr Brown be foiled by a couple of green youths like Tuppence and Tommy?
One intelligence agent tells them, 'My experts, working in stereotypical ways, have failed. You will bring imagination and an open mind to the task.' Perhaps the enjoyment of this novel hinges on the willingness of us readers to accept that reasoning for involving total noobs.
If we are happy to swallow that premise, it's a fun read! The story sets us on edge, looking for Mr Brown in the unlikeliest places. Breakthroughs sometimes rely on the slightest details and surprises follow on the tail of each other. And perhaps because Christie isn't a deft hand at writing romance, the romantic snippets are sort of awkward and endearing.
The story takes place only five years after the disaster it draws from; the sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania by a German submarine during WW1. I guess Agatha Christie joins the ranks of opportunistic fiction authors who profit from still raw grief, for over 1000 passengers were drowned in this tragedy. But hey, Covid pandemic novels started hitting our shelves barely three years after 2020, so story fodder is still being left to the discretion of writers and publishers.
Although this story is not totally flawess, relying heavily on coincidences a few too many times, I think it still deserves full marks for its wonderful twists and subtle clues, especially considering Christie was still quite young and this was just her second novel. She was excellent at anticipating not only my initial suspicions but even my subsequent guesses when I thought I was being smart.
One thing that puzzles me is why characters such as Tommy initially find the name 'Jane Finn' so outlandish and remarkable. It strikes me as quite a fine and run-of-the-mill name. Would you pause in amazement if you heard some stranger refer to 'Jane Finn'? I wouldn't. If I was able to step into the pages, I'd ask him why he found it so odd.
As for Jane herself, wow, what a memorable character. Talk about taking a trust seriously on behalf of her country.
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