Product Description

In this ingenious puzzler-the last novel Agatha Christie ever wrote-Tommy and Tuppence Beresford discover a clue to a killer's identity within the pages of a children's storybook.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #246265 in Books
• Published on: 2000-07-01
• Released on: 2000-07-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780451200532
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
'The Beresfords are wonderfully revived. Smooth, beautifully paced, and effortlessly convincing.' New York Times 'Past and present interlock impressively! this is a genuine tour de force.' Observer

About the Author
Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890 and became, quite simply, the best-selling novelist in history. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written towards the end of the First World War, introduced us to Hercule Poirot, who was to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes. She is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in over 100 foreign languages. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays, and six novels under the name of Mary Westmacott.

From AudioFile
[Editor's Note: This is a combined review with THE SECRET ADVERSARY.]--When we first meet detectives Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley, it's just after WWI, and they're hiring themselves out as "young adventurers." Their first case, finding the mysterious Jane Finn, is classic Christie with its twists, turns, and a final surprise. In POSTERN OF FATE, we meet Tommy and Tuppence much later (they're now married) as they uncover an old mystery in the home they've selected for their retirement. Samatha Bond, whose voice will be familiar to those who enjoy British television mysteries featuring Inspector Morse and Hercule Poirot, does a top-notch job with these stories. Her pacing is perfect, and her ability to switch from American to British to Russian-inflected accents astonishing. Bond's enthusiastic reading allows listeners to suspend their disbelief over Christie's more amazing plot twists and enjoy her stories for what they are: the foundation of the modern mystery. J.C.G. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

She's written much, much better
I am a tremendous Agatha Christie fan, and you will be too so long as you don't start with this book. It's true, she wrote it when she was in her 80s, and it shows. However, start out chronologically with her books - The Mysterious Affair at Styles, 1920, and go on from there, and you will probably love her. Mysteries, action adventure (rather tame by todays standards but there's nothing wrong in that !) and well written. Her later books must be read by devoted fans who just want to see her old characters again. Her earliest books are the best - and I mean, the best!

New light on Dame Agatha Christie's last days
Since its publication, POSTERN OF FATE has received largely execrable reviews, with some labelling it "tedious" and others finding themselvs unable to follow its byzantinely boring plot. Look at the reviews on Amazon for samples. Now comes new evidence that the version of POSTERN OF FATE which we have was severely edited and that Christie's original may be a very different (and more cogent) work than the one we all know and abhor.

Sotheby's was offering the "complete Dictaphone recording of Agatha Christie dictating her last novel" including the original dictaphone belts she used (sixty of them). This was evidently put up for sale by her secretary, Mrs. Jolly. Did you know that "Postern of Fate" was Christie's sub=title for the novel and that the real title is "Doom's Caravan"? Sotheby's catalogue, from which I quote here, reveals that "the text incorporated here differs substantially in very many instances from the final, printed version . . . Among the most striking differences might be noted the following. [WARNING -- SPOILERS AHEAD.] The group responsible for Mary Jordan's murder is here more clearly identified as a Fascist cell amd many more details of, and clues about, them are given in a substantial section eventually cut. The motivation for the murder of old Isaac by a descendant of this group who is endeavouring to bring Fascism to England is, accordinly, more substantiated in the present version; moreover, in the way this material is here worked, clues are thrown out so as apparently to implicate a different murderer. The rearrangement of the final, printed version, in which some of these chapters are placed earlier, also leaves a few threads hanging loose, evidently because of poor editing, there remain in the printed version a few references to certain of these sections which had either by then been moved in such a way that the references are inappropriate or else cut alttogether . . ."

Perhaps it is the case that Christie's last novel isn't the sad, woolgathering, near-Alzheimers experience it presently seems to be, but instead it was the victim of "poor editing"? Wouldn't it be great if a critical edition of POSTERN OF FATE--or should we call it DOOM'S CARAVAN--could be prepared by the Christie estate which would clear up some of these inconsistencies and restore the blot from her reputation?

I give this book only 4 stars because, well, it isn't all that good, and until her original version is restored, this is all we're going to have.

Agatha's worst book!
I am an Agatha Christie fan, and although her books don't have the deep character development of some authors, she's generally ingenious in the construction of the mysteries, and such a good writer that each book is a pleasure to read.

BUT.....this book is boring, boring, boring. There is no mystery to speak of, and such as it is, is solved pretty much without any particular input by the Beresford couple, Tommy and Tuppence, nor is it a mystery the reader gets to try to solve.

Tommy and Tuppence continually, page after page and chapter after chapter, speculate on what might be the solution to the mystery. In the first place, speculation is not exactly detection. In the second place, about the sixth or eighth time Tuppence brightly wondered what might be the solution and Tommy fondly said he didn't know either, I wanted to strangle both of them. I prefer for SOMETHING to be happening in a book. NOT for the characters to be sitting around saying "Gee, there seems to be a mystery. I wonder who did it?"

This might have made an amusing short story. But it was strung out to tedious length and actually made me angry with myself for not just throwing it away instead of slogging all the way to the disappointing end.