My 7 year old daughter came home from a shopping jaunt with my wife and was excited to give me a book she found at GoodWill. She wanted me to start it right away and I had just started Feser's "Scholastic Metaphysics" and was not in the mood for fiction and certainly not for something by Agatha Christie.
With a smile I condescended to her request, internally begrudging it... but my word: this book is fun to read.
The story follows a 20 something married couple (Tommy and Tuppence)... married for 6 years to be exact.
The story starts with a bored for excitement Tuppence staring out of her flat's window on a scene of more flats while she sings to Tommy:
"So Tommy and Tuppence were married," she chanted,
"and lived happily ever afterwards. And six years later they
were still living together happily ever afterwards. It is
extraordinary," she said, "how different everything always is
from what you think it is going to be."
She yearns for something to spice up their days... for something to happen, Tommy warns her to keep these "vulgar sensations" in check.
Some of the most enjoyable and witty couple banter starts:
'How prudent men are,’ sighed Tuppence. ‘Don’t you ever
have a wild secret yearning for romance–adventure–life?’
‘What have you been reading, Tuppence?’ asked Tommy.
‘Think how exciting it would be,’ went on Tuppence, ‘if we
heard a wild rapping at the door and went to open it and in
staggered a dead man.’
‘If he was dead he couldn’t stagger,’ said Tommy
critically.
‘You know what I mean,’ said Tuppence. ‘They always
stagger in just before they die and fall at your feet, just
gasping out a few enigmatic words. “The Spotted Leopard”,
or something like that.’
‘I advise a course of Schopenhauer or Emmanuel Kant,’
said Tommy.
‘That sort of thing would be good for you,’ said Tuppence.
‘You are getting fat and comfortable.’
The next moment they see a fairy in a photograph Tommy had taken (one that was not expected to be there, of course):
In walks a Mr. Carter and asks Tuppence and Tommy if they want to temporarily run a detective agency that a friend of Mr. Carters acquired "for a mere song". They both acquiesce and start solving mysteries.He handed her a magnifying glass. Tuppence studied the
print attentively through it. Seen thus by a slight stretch of
fancy the scratch on the film could be imagined to represent
a small winged creature on the fender.
‘It has got wings,’ cried Tuppence. ‘What fun, a real live
fairy in our flat. Shall we write to Conan Doyle about it? Oh,
Tommy. Do you think she’ll give us wishes?’
This all in the first 7 pages of the book. For as ham-fisted as all of that rushed stage building seems, a lesser author would have it seemed contrived to the point of childish, not Christie though.
I see that this is one of her less famous works. I'm excited now to read some others.
Given the detective theme I was curious if she and Chesterton ever rubbed elbows. And it turns out that she, Chesterton, Ronald Knox, and Dorothy Sayers (along with others) collaborated on a novel called "The Floating Admiral" in which each of these authors contributed a chapter.
