When Tommy
and Tuppence begin their career as The Young Adventurers, they have no idea
what to expect - after all, they haven’t yet decided what young
adventurers do. But after Tommy hears the name ‘Jane Finn’ in a restaurant and
Tuppence decides to use it as an alias, they discover that being a young
adventurer isn’t much fun after all. The violence and kidnappings aren’t so bad,
but going without food is something they didn’t bargain for.
I’m fairly sure I’ve read something by Agatha Christie before, but although I had a strong impression she was a very good writer, her books didn’t especially grip me. Until I read BookByYou's Night Wolf, I didn’t have much interest in detective fiction. Detectives are always so clever and unemotional. But the mystery side of Night Wolf fascinated me almost as much as the sexy werewolf, and I thought it was time I gave Mystery By You a chance.
I completely fell in love with The Secret Adversary. Agatha Christie describes
the action brilliantly, but not in such a way that you’re so busy admiring her
eloquent turn of phrase, it distracts you from the story. The book has an
incredible plot, full of twists and turns and red herrings.
She’s also created some amazing characters.
I love Tommy and Tuppence so much. They have a great partnership. They’re brave
and funny, and they also seem intelligent, though they are young and new to the
business, so they make mistakes. But the main reason I love them is because
they’re such lovely people.
I can’t decide if I want to read all Agatha
Christie’s novels about Tommy and Tuppence right now, or if I want to wait in
the hope that BookByYou will personalise them. I do have trouble reading about
characters with nicknames, so I might find someone called Tuppence just too
annoying. It makes her sound a bit cheap. But as I already love the character,
I hope I’ll be able to overlook it.
In a lot of books that take place in the past, I have
trouble identifying with the characters because it’s so obviously a different
world. But I found it really easy to identify with many of the characters in The Secret Adversary. The characters speak
informally, the women are intelligent and independent (I’m not one of those
annoying feminist people, I’m of those annoying equalitists), and it's easy to imagine a lot of the story happening in the present day.
I also loved
reading the parts set in London, as I know a lot of the places Tommy and
Tuppence go to. I’ve even stood outside the entrance to Dover Street tube
station (now called Green Park, with a new entrance around the corner), though I
didn’t get there until nearly seventy years after it closed.
The only problem with the brilliant plot was
that I’d worked out most of what was going on by the time I was halfway through
the book. This happens a lot. It’s strange, as I never know what’s going on in
real life. But it didn’t matter. I was completely caught up in the story, and knowing
what’s going to happen doesn’t make a story – or anything else - less scary. I
loved the book, and it’s definitely one of my favourite personalised books,
along with Black Lace, Emma and the other Jane Austen novels.
When personalising this book, you should
stay away from names like James, Rita, Annette, Boris and Conrad, and don’t under
any circumstances give any guy characters the surname Brown. Whittington,
Kramenin and Vandemeyer are also inadvisable.
The names in the chapter headings aren’t
always correct (in the chapter list and within the book), but there doesn’t seem
to be any similar problems with the text. There are some confusing bits in the
story, but I think they're supposed to be there.
I’m really looking forward to personalising
BookByYou’s Hercule Poirot novel. I’m definitely going to give my character a
name I can actually pronounce. (I can read and write French up to a point, but I
can’t say anything much without making people laugh.)
