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Agatha Christie's Sleuths: Tommy and Tuppence
339 Plays1 year ago
Brook and Sarah discuss another of Agatha Christie's sleuths this week. In this episode, they look at duo Tommy and Tuppence. The pair appeared in five books: four novels and one short story collection. Find out why Brook and Sarah find them so interesting and what they learned about Christie's writing.
Discussed
The Secret Adversary (1922) Agatha Christie
Partners in Crime (1929) Agatha Christie
N or M? (1941) Agatha Christie
By the Pricking of My Thumbs (1968) Agatha Christie
Postern of Fate (1973) Agatha Christie
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) Agatha Christie
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Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – www.silvermansound.com
Transcript
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Transcript
Introduction and Excitement for Agatha Christie
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome to Clued In Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke. And we both love mystery. Hi Brooke. Hi Sarah. How are you doing? I'm doing really great. How about you? Yeah, I'm great too. I'm looking forward to today's episode.
Focus on Tommy and Tuppence
00:00:28
Speaker
Yeah, so we are going to talk again about some of Agatha Christie's sleuths. So just to remind our listeners in season one, we talked about Agatha Christie and her life and her contributions to the mystery space, but we are going to start exploring some of her characters.
Introducing Tommy and Tuppence
00:00:54
Speaker
Yeah, and today we'll talk about Tommy and Tuppence. So I'll start us off with a little summary here.
00:01:01
Speaker
Tommy and Tuppence are two of Agatha Christie's lesser known sleuths. She began writing these stories featuring Thomas Beresford and Prudence Tuppence Cowley early on in her career. The first book featuring the duo was The Secret Adversary. It was published in 1922 and was Christie's second published novel. Afterwards, books featuring them were sprinkled throughout her career.
00:01:25
Speaker
The secret adversary opens with Tommy and Tuppence bumping into one another shortly after World War I. Tommy has fought in the Great War and was wounded twice. We learn that Tuppence is one of several children of a conservative archdeacon who served in the voluntary aid detachment during the war. But the two of them were well acquainted and friends as children.
Ordinary Charm of the Duo
00:01:52
Speaker
I think it's really interesting. Christy does not make either of these characters particularly physically attractive. And that's kind of odd in fiction, right? She says, Tuppence, quote, had no claim to beauty, but there was character and charm in the elfin lines of her little face.
00:02:09
Speaker
with its determined chin and large, wide-apart gray eyes." And Tommy's, quote, face was pleasantly ugly, nondescript, yet unmistakably the face of a gentleman and a sportsman, unquote. I really like this, the idea that they're just two ordinary people, and we come to admire and love them not for their outward beauty, but for their spunk and courage and
The Young Adventurers and Jane Finn
00:02:36
Speaker
wit.
00:02:36
Speaker
and they come to admire one another for the same reasons, but we'll get to that in a bit.
00:02:43
Speaker
Since they're both out of work when they bump into each other, they decide to form a company called the Young Adventurers. At first, they consider engaging in illegal activity as a way to make money, but eventually decide that they'll offer to do adventurous errands for people.
Romantic Thriller Elements
00:03:01
Speaker
Their first such case is to find a missing, mysterious woman named Jane Finn, and it certainly proves to be an adventure.
00:03:11
Speaker
The book is what I would consider a mystery thriller or a caper rather than the puzzle mystery like Christie's first novel, The Mysterious Affair of Styles. It's a huge departure from that type of book.
00:03:24
Speaker
And in The Secret Adversary, the secondary plot line concerns Tommy Intepence's romantic relationship. Over the course of the story, they both realize that they've fallen in love with one another, and by the end of the book, they are engaged.
Books and Aging in Real-Time
00:03:40
Speaker
And then the books following, they're a married couple working these cases together.
00:03:47
Speaker
There are five books featuring Tommy and Tuppence. As I said, the secret adversary is 1922. Partners in Crime is a short story collection from 1929. And this one features some more puzzle mystery type cases. They're working as detectives in a detective agency.
00:04:07
Speaker
A 1941 novel is N or M, then we have By the Pricking of My Thumbs in 1968. And the final Tommy and Tuppence is Postern of Fate from 1973.
Postern of Fate and Christie's Last Work
00:04:21
Speaker
And at this point, the two sleuths are in their 70s and they're ready to settle down in a country home. But lucky for us, they find a coded message in an old book.
00:04:31
Speaker
pointing to a possible murder. And so they take on the case and to investigate this cold case. Unlike the better known Christy Sleuths, such as Poirot and Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence, as you can see from the list of novels, aged in time with the real world. Over the years, they're revealed to have raised three children together.
00:04:56
Speaker
And they also have a fun recurring character named Albert in the stories he first appears as a lift boy who helps them in the secret adversary. And then in partners in crime he becomes their kind of hapless assistant at this private detective agency that they're operating.
00:05:13
Speaker
And by postern of fate, he's their butler. The last Tommy and Tuppets book also happens to be the last book Agatha Christie ever wrote.
Christie's Personal Connection
00:05:23
Speaker
It was released in 1973. I like to think about Dame Agatha in her 80s dictating that story. She'd grown old with Tommy and Tuppets and here they all were now in their golden years investigating their last case together.
00:05:40
Speaker
So Sarah, how familiar have you been with Tommy and Tuppence over the years?
00:05:46
Speaker
Yeah, so I have to admit, not very familiar at all. And I have to say, I love that they kind of bookended her career, right? If they were the second book that she published and the final book that she wrote. And I absolutely adore that she had them age alongside her. I think that's so wonderful.
00:06:13
Speaker
I do too. I think that's very special and it makes me feel like these characters must have had a very special place in her heart to do that because they were the only ones who did. Poirot basically stayed the same character, Miss Marple, even though she's elderly, she's always elderly, right? So I think that she must have really cared for these two.
1920s Context and Tone
00:06:39
Speaker
Brooke, your description of Tommy and Tuppence's first novel
00:06:45
Speaker
I can almost hear what I think would have been the enthusiasm generally in society at the time, right? It was 1922. They would have recovered from the Spanish flu epidemic. And, you know, the First World War had been finished. And, you know, my impression of the early 1920s was that it was just this kind of
00:07:10
Speaker
joyful time for people. And I can almost hear that in the way that you were describing that first novel. Yeah, I'm glad that came across because that definitely is how it reads. And that's the beauty, I think, of her setting these novels in real time. These characters in 1922 are in their mid 20s. I mean, you can practically hear the Charleston plan in the background.
00:07:40
Speaker
they use a lot of the colloquialisms of like the young people in that era the way that they talk it the story has a caper comedic feel to it and that's not to say that they don't get into dangerous situations they definitely do there's a lot of real danger
00:07:58
Speaker
But it's such a departure from styles that, you know, in some ways, it's hard if someone didn't tell me that the same person wrote these two books, I would be hard pressed to believe it. But, you know, you're right on, Sarah. It's very fun. It's lighthearted. It's, it's
Limited Number of Books: Why?
00:08:16
Speaker
a caper. And yeah, it's great fun.
00:08:20
Speaker
Do you know why there were only five books featuring them? I'm not sure. I haven't really seen any real explanation of why she didn't write more. I feel like there's opportunity for her to have been just as popular as her other slews that we know so much better. So I'm not sure the answer to that.
00:08:48
Speaker
But they definitely had a much richer backstory, you know, like they, they were a married couple and they had children together and they had, you know, this recurring character of Albert, which I thought was just really cute. He came along with them in their life. So I can't say for sure, but I kind of wish that we had more.
TV Adaptations and Popularity
00:09:11
Speaker
It does sound like they, as you suggest, were really important to her, but maybe that's why we don't see as much of them. You think about how kind of personal or sorry, how private she was. Maybe that's why we don't see as much of them because she just felt such a strong connection to them.
00:09:35
Speaker
That's a great point. And we know that from some of the things that she's written in her diaries that she could tire of Poirot. And he could be tiresome, right? But I think that these novels must have been really great palette cleansers for her.
00:09:54
Speaker
because her other sleuths that were very successful and definitely her commercial successes were a little stiff, you know, kind of cerebral. And so these gave her a chance to write more of a caper story. They're very lighthearted and fun. And
00:10:18
Speaker
I wonder if when she needed that and you know, she wanted that kind of that palate cleanser story that it was something that she could do. But I liked that idea that yeah, maybe she didn't want to give too much of these people away and, and grow tired of them because they probably could have been just as much of a commercial success, but then you get on the hamster wheel of having to create them and that might've ruined it for her.
Romantic Dynamics and Modern Parallels
00:10:42
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've talked before about how she definitely grew tired of, of Poirot and yeah, maybe she just wanted to protect them a little bit.
00:10:54
Speaker
It was fun to see her write more about, um, personal relationships. She does the witty banter between Tommy and Tuppence really well. And, uh, Tuppence is just super spunky and just gives it right back to him and their dialogue is, is great. I feel like it was a good setup for a lot of the, uh,
00:11:18
Speaker
romantic suspense duos that we see even now on screen, you know, moonlighting, Miss Scarlett and the Duke, you know that they like each other, but they're trying not to admit it to them, even to themselves that they kind of have this connection. So she does a great job with that, that chemistry.
00:11:37
Speaker
Oh, that's terrific. And super interesting that we can draw that line from things that we are more familiar with today to stuff that was written 100 years ago.
00:11:54
Speaker
Yeah, and that it still appeals. We love that. Just as humans, we love some of those emotions that you go through in relationships, whether it's friendly relationships, platonic or romantic, that kind of friction and conflict that people have before they come together as partners. I just really enjoyed it.
00:12:17
Speaker
I really like that it sounds like they had a really happy life, you know, that they they did get married. They had children. And then, you know, they've retired and have this final case together. I think that's such a nice arc. And again, just thinking about her life and the the direction that it took. You know, I think that's really nice.
00:12:47
Speaker
Yes, doesn't it seem like she's writing like the perfect fairy tale? Like it all worked out perfectly for this couple. They got to do these exciting things together. There was clearly I've not read them all. I'm sure that there are some there's some
00:13:04
Speaker
arguments and bickering, just knowing Tommy and Tuppence the little bit that I do. But for the most part, you know, there was no big strife and they, like you say, they just have this lovely arc. And I think she's writing like this perfect scenario.
00:13:19
Speaker
And I love the
Diverse Genres and Cliffhangers
00:13:21
Speaker
idea of them kind of setting up this agency to, was it called the Young Adventurers? Yes. To help people. Yeah, I think that's really cool too. I can just imagine that sort of decision making process.
00:13:43
Speaker
Yeah, and they have no idea the the huge adventure that they're about to go on. And, you know, that's a really good point that these books are by and large thrillers more so than like the puzzle mystery, as I mentioned at the beginning.
00:14:00
Speaker
And I find it so fascinating that she went from, and we've talked about this before, the fact that she could do it all, right? She could write short stories and novels, spy thrillers and puzzle mysteries, but she did this back to back. It's such an early part of her career.
00:14:18
Speaker
She she released the mysterious affairs styles and then the very next book is this huge departure where these people go on. This sweeping european mystery thriller much more of an adventure novel and i was just really impressed by that knowing how early she was in her writing career to be able to pull it off.
00:14:40
Speaker
We've talked before about how broad her output was, right? That, yeah, she had, as you say, the traditional puzzle mysteries, these thrillers, the more supernatural stories. And then she wrote romance under the Mary Westmacott name, right? Like she just did so much. And I think as an author thinking about that,
00:15:10
Speaker
Like, it's okay to write kind of what you want and explore different genres and different subgenres. We don't have to stay in one particular space for our entire careers. I think you're right. I think she demonstrates that really well.
00:15:32
Speaker
Brooke, were there any TV adaptations of any of Tommy and Tuppence's stories? There have been many. There have been many especially named Partners in Crime, which is the short story collection. And although I didn't get an opportunity to watch any
00:15:52
Speaker
from what I could see from my research, they don't necessarily follow along with the plot lines of the published stories. It's sort of taking the characters and extrapolating and putting them. Now, I believe that there are some that are more in line with the stories or the novels, but there really have been a lot. And I think that that
00:16:16
Speaker
speaks to the fact of how great this character chemistry and the dialogue is between them because they're just. And as you read the books, you'll see what I mean, that they're just people that you could imagine. You could imagine this on screen, especially as that kind of sweeping thriller where they're, you know, running from one location to the next and hiding out. And it all works really well for screen adaptation, I think.
00:16:44
Speaker
I seem to recall watching an episode of the most recent Miss Marple mysteries, and I think they make an appearance in one of the episodes. And I don't know if there are any crossover original stories that feature Miss Marple and Tommy and Tuppence, or if that was just some creative license that the creators of
00:17:13
Speaker
that version of Miss Marple Mysteries took. I believe that it was just a creative choice because in that particular story, Tommy and Tuppence are the original sleuths. But in order to bring it to the screen, they made Miss Marple the sleuth and then had Tommy and Tuppence do a cameo, basically. But in the original story, Miss Marple doesn't appear and Tommy and Tuppence are the sleuths for that.
00:17:40
Speaker
Interesting ways that that Christie verse that we've kind of talked about she's done that herself in crossing over some characters and then as the years have passed and evolved then you know even some of the producers have expanded that further because I love the idea of all three of those people being in a show together.
00:18:02
Speaker
Yeah, I think you could do some really interesting things with that, right? To really explore how those very different characters could exist in the same world. Absolutely. It would be very fun.
00:18:19
Speaker
Another feature of these stories are the way that Christy utilizes cliffhangers at the end of chapters. That's not really something that I have noticed in her other more, um, more famous mysteries with the Poirot or Miss Marple as the sleuths. But, um, I mean, it's the definite cliffhanger moment at the end of each chapter. And I found it interesting because yes, we're dealing with more of a thriller and,
00:18:48
Speaker
how she used that device in that genre, subgenre, but not so much in her puzzle mysteries. I just think as an author, it was an interesting thing to note that
Desire for More Stories
00:19:03
Speaker
she did that. It definitely served that purpose that she was utilizing because you just had to keep going and moving through the book to find out what happened next. Oh, that's really interesting.
00:19:14
Speaker
how much would I love to have a conversation with her and be able to ask her some questions about some of these things? Oh, absolutely. And the, and the way that it seemed to be innate for her, because again, I know I'm repeating myself, but this is back to back with styles. So she is doing something completely new and different and it just feels like it was an intuitive knowing for her to how to build this in. So I'm always fascinated. Oh my goodness. Me too.
00:19:43
Speaker
Well, Sarah, this has been so much fun. Thanks for chatting with me today about Tommy and Tuppence.
Conclusion and Social Media Info
00:19:49
Speaker
I definitely want to read more of these, especially that last book, Postern of Fate, when there are the elderly sleuths who happen upon their very last mystery.
00:20:00
Speaker
Yeah, I'm definitely going to have to check out some of the Tommy and Tuppence novels and short stories. Maybe we can regroup after we've done that. Sounds great. And if any of you decide to take up one of these novels, please get in touch and let us know what you think. And for today, thank you for joining us on Clued in Mystery. I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah. And we both love mystery.
00:20:25
Speaker
Clued In Mystery is produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers at Silvermansound.com. Visit us online at CluedInMystery.com or social media at CluedInMystery. If you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or telling your friends.