We will learn that they have three children – their twins Deborah and Derek, and an adopted orphan, Betty. They are in their early twenties in The Secret Adversary (1922) and in their seventies in Postern of Fate (1973). Unlike Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, who start off old and fifty years later are hardly any older, Tommy and Tuppence age roughly in step with the time of publication of the books in which they appear. Tommy is described by Sir James Peel Edgerton: “he is not clever, but it is hard to blind his eyes to the facts”. Tuppence appears as a charismatic, impulsive and intuitive person, perhaps like Agatha Christie herself. The book of short stories is Partners in Crime (1929). The novels are: The Secret Adversary (1922) Nor M? (1941) By the Pricking of my Thumbs (1968) and Postern of Fate (1973) which was the last novel Christie wrote. Tommy and Tuppence appear in several short stories, and four novels spread throughout Christie’s long career, almost as though she couldn’t let them go. Rather as Poirot and Hastings owe much to Holmes and Watson, so Japp has similarities with Conan Doyles’ Inspector Lestrade. Japp is mentioned in The Secret Adversary, and so acts as a small link between the worlds of Poirot, and of Tommy and Tuppence. Thereafter Japp appears in six more novels and is mentioned in a further three. He is mentioned in the second Poirot novel, The Murder on the Links. We meet him in Christie’s first published novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. In one novel Poirot takes Japp to a French restaurant in London. He is an acquaintance of, and sometimes a foil to, Hercule Poirot. Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard appears in many of Christie’s early novels. Click here for full review (spoilers ahead) Trivia Inspector Japp They make a pretty pair … Pace and stamina’. Carter says of Tuppence, contrasting her with Tommy: Prudence has ‘no claim to beauty….but charm in the elfin lines of her little face, with wide apart grey eyes’. Tommy Beresford is described as ‘pleasantly ugly’ yet ‘unmistakably a gentleman and sportsman’. There are a few, fair clues, which is unusual in a thriller, too.
Tommy and Tuppence clearly enjoy each other’s company, so there is the frisson of romance in the air. There is a breathless pace, with much rushing around the United Kingdom, dealing with gangsters, guns, Russian Bolsheviks and American millionaires to add colourful characters.
The Secret Adversary ☆☆ Reasons for the Poirot Score
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