The Secret Adversary Agatha Christie

The Secret Adversary Agatha Christie
This is the first Tommy and Tuppence mystery which I have read – weirdly I had shied away from these books as I have always enjoyed Poirot and Miss Marple – therefore I didn’t think I would enjoy them, but I was pleasantly surprised.
Our story starts just after the Great War with our brave Hero’s having been demobbed from the Army searching for work and struggling. They were childhood friends and meet again in London by chance. This being so they decide to form The Young Adventurers and hire themselves out for anything and everything that comes their way.
There were many people in this situation after the war with the economy struggling and with a vast quantity of young people released from the Armed forces (and related fields) no longer having employment – they were given a severance cheque but that only goes so far. Agatha herself worked in various capacities during the war even training as a pharmacist which came in especially useful for knowledge of poisons and medical settings which feature in several of her books.
The Secret Adversary is Agatha’s 2nd book and at the time brought  in the princely sum of £50 as the publisher was unsure of the style working as a genre.
I would describe this book as more of a spy thriller than the murder mystery genre Agatha is known for. Weirdly the style seems more in the line of PG Woodhouse’s work than Agatha’s other books though there was some overlap time wise (ie Woodhouse published earlier 1908 for his Jeeves and Wooster series) it was more a product of the times than any conscious effort.
In their search for work Tommy and Tuppence are caught up in the affair of Mr Brown a shadowy underworld figure working against the British Government & the mysterious character of Jane Fynn. The story has all the elements of the time – is it Fascists? Is it Bolsheviks? Trade Unionists? Russians? Germans? Standard thugs? Or is it a combination of all of the above making strange bedfellows?
 

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