“That, I thought, would make a good beginning to a story – a name overheard at a tea shop – an unusual name, so that whoever heard it remembered it.” -An Autobiography by Agatha Christie
The name is Jane Finn and it is thrown out casually by Miss Tuppence Cowley as her cover during the first client meeting of The Young Adventurers, Ltd., with dire results. The name, overheard by her partner Tommy Beresford during tea, proves to be at the heart of a post-World War I plot by revolutionaries to spark international unrest.
The Secret Adversary, published in 1922, features the debut of Tommy and Tuppence, childhood friends who are reunited after the war and decide to embark on a partnership dedicated to adventure to overcome their financial woes.
Their first client, Mr. Whittington, is interested in hiring Tuppence to travel to Paris and impersonate an American. When Whittington asks her name, she startles him by saying the first name that pops into her head – Jane Finn. That just happens to be the woman Whittington wants her to impersonate, but he vanishes before Tuppence has a chance to question him further. A newspaper ad, placed by the adventurous pair, asking for information about Jane Finn, introduces them to American millionaire Julius Hersheimmer, who claims to be looking for his missing cousin Jane Finn, and Mr. A. Carter, a secret service operative who explains that Jane Finn was given very important papers during the sinking of the Lusitania and promptly disappeared after landing with the survivors. His agency and the revolutionists, headed by the mysterious and elusive Mr. Brown, are both in a race to find Jane Finn and the documents. Carter hires Tommy and Tuppence to join the chase.
I have never read any of Agatha’s Tommy and Tuppence mysteries until I opened The Secret Adversary. I find it curious that Agatha departed so quickly from Hercule Poirot in her second mystery novel, but have to admit, that Tommy and Tuppence both gained my admiration quickly, and I enjoyed the true sense of adventure they brought to the story. While Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple rely more on dialogue and the analysis of clues, Tommy and Tuppence were faced with going undercover, imprisonment and death threats, gunshots, and car chases.
Without playing spoiler, I was able to narrow it down to two suspects who could possibly be Mr. Brown, but I was unsure until the final chapter of who he actually was and where Jane Finn, and the documents, were hiding.
I give The Secret Adversary four out of five stars and look forward to Tommy and Tuppence’s next adventure.
