Helpful Score: 1
First appearing in 1924, this is the fourth published novel by Agatha Christie, and as such, an interesting opportunity to watch her develop the style, characters and tropes that would serve her (and her readers) so well. No Poirot: an interesting choice, given that The Mysterious Affair at Styles had made Christies a hot item, with her readership hungry for more of the same, to the extent that (according to my exhaustive Wikipedia research) the Poirotlessness was commented upon in otherwise positive reviews. Instead, her reluctant detective is Anne Beddingfeld, a Nancy Drew-like amateur sleuth who gets drawn into dark dealings out of a sense of fun and adventure, with the additional backup of Colonel Race, a shadowy figure who might be something with the Secret Service, and who takes a personal and professional interest in our young heroine.
All sort of things -- good and bad -- hint that all this was a lot more autobiographical than you might expect: the early chapters, set on an ocean liner steaming its way toward Cape Town, south Africa, are wonderful, little time capsules of life lived in a very different time. Anne's heartfelt amazement at the beauty of southern Africa -- Cape Town, the veldt, Victoria Falls -- feels very real. There are unnecessary and distracting descriptions of hotels and tearooms, and train stops, and activities like surfing, and buying too many souvenirs, that feel like in-jokes that are meant to amuse someone who had been there. And sure enough, I discovered that the novel was draws upon an around-the-world promotional tour for the British Empire Exhibition that Christie and her husband participated in in 1922, when the couple traveled to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and Canada. The whole novel is pretty clearly a thinly disguised portrait of the personalities, and the group dynamic, of the individuals on the tour.
A thin mystery, but fascinating for its insights into Agatha Christies life and personality ...
All sort of things -- good and bad -- hint that all this was a lot more autobiographical than you might expect: the early chapters, set on an ocean liner steaming its way toward Cape Town, south Africa, are wonderful, little time capsules of life lived in a very different time. Anne's heartfelt amazement at the beauty of southern Africa -- Cape Town, the veldt, Victoria Falls -- feels very real. There are unnecessary and distracting descriptions of hotels and tearooms, and train stops, and activities like surfing, and buying too many souvenirs, that feel like in-jokes that are meant to amuse someone who had been there. And sure enough, I discovered that the novel was draws upon an around-the-world promotional tour for the British Empire Exhibition that Christie and her husband participated in in 1922, when the couple traveled to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and Canada. The whole novel is pretty clearly a thinly disguised portrait of the personalities, and the group dynamic, of the individuals on the tour.
A thin mystery, but fascinating for its insights into Agatha Christies life and personality ...
