N or M? - Agatha Christie

Published by Fontana Books: London & Glasgow, 1969 (1962).
First published 1941.

Over the school holidays we spent a weekend at my aunt's bach in Pohara with my parents. It was a lovely location and a great time over all (though Ezekiel slept pretty poorly on the first night, and so Elise and I also slept poorly as a result). 

Of course, a trip away is also a chance to browse a bookshelf, and this one jumped out to me mostly because it was relatively short, and I know Agatha Christie books are pretty quick to read. I still had to bring it home to finish it, but since it's my aunt's bach I know I'll be able to get it back to her.

N or M? surprised me in a few ways. Firstly, it is not (primarily) about a murder. Death does occur within the story, but the plot is actually about uncovering a German spy living in England (it is written and set during the Second World War). Secondly, N or M? surprised me by being a Tommy and Tuppence book! I've only read one Tommy and Tuppence book previously, which was a collection of shorter stories linked together, but really enjoyed it, particularly after having previously watched the movie The Thin Man and seeing parallels between the two.

In the earlier book, Tommy and Tuppence were a young married couple who got involved in spy operations. This book picks up years later, after their twin children have grown and left home. Tommy is roped in to investigate the possible German spy, and Tuppence manages to weasel her way into the investigation uninvited. The earlier Tommy and Tuppence stories still felt like a Christie novel, but with a slightly more humorous undertone than some; this book picks up the same vibe, which I appreciated.

The mystery itself involves figuring out whether a mysterious German operative (who could be codenamed either N or M) is living at a particular guesthouse. Each member of the guesthouse is thus a suspect, and Tommy and Tuppence (each of whom has arrived under a separate assumed identity) must divide to investigate each person, while not giving away either their true motives in doing so, or even their connection to each other. 

There are a few red herrings, quite a few suspicious characters, and a few moments that made me consider someone's deeper motives. Once or twice I got some good ideas that paid off, but a few other twists still surprised me. 

Fun, not too heavy, and a nice diversion when sitting in the sun at a bach in Pohara.

Completed 27 April 2025.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Pōrangi Boy - Shilo Kino

Image
Published by Huia Publishers: Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, 2021 (2020). Niko Te Kainga-mataa lives in the small town of Pohe Bay, a predominantly Māori community where the New Zealand government is planning to build a prison. Niko's grandfather, Tangaroa, is opposed to the prison, saying that it is going to be built on Māori land that is being watched over by the taniwha Taukere. Unfortunately, Tangaroa is known as the "pōrangi man" (crazy man), and throughout the book we see that he has lost some of his mental faculties - even to the point of urinating on people. As his grandson, and as someone who also wants to stand up against the prison being built, Niko too is labelled as pōrangi. Through the book, Niko has to wrestle with his own beliefs regarding Taukere, as well as learning to take a stronger leadership role in the community, particularly in the area of protesting the prison. Being written by a Māori author, Shilo Kino,  The Pōrangi Boy has a very authentic M...
Read more

The Last Battle - CS Lewis

Image
Published in an omnibus edition with the full Chronicles of Narnia series: " The Magician's Nephew "; " The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe "; " The Horse and His Boy "; " Prince Caspian ";  "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" ;  "The Silver Chair" ; "The Last Battle" , by Harper Collins Publishers: Hammersmith, London, 2010. Originally published 1956. The final book in the Narnia series, The Last Battle appropriates covers the events leading up to and surrounding the end of Narnia itself. The last king of Narnia, Tirian, and his close friend, the unicorn Jewel, enlist the help of Eustace and Jill to do battle against a "false Aslan" and an army of Calormenes. The book is different from the remainder of the Narnia series (aside from The Horse and His Boy ) in that it begins in Narnia, following Narnians, with no one from 'our' world arriving until quite a way in to the book. Even when they do ...
Read more

The Lost City of Z - David Grann

Image
Published by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd: London, 2017 (2009). I've been wanting to read this book for quite some time, ever since I heard about the movie being made back in 2016. It tells the true story of explorer Percy Fawcett, who believed that the Amazon jungle contained the ruins of a massive city, which he nicknamed Z. In 1925 Fawcett, along with his son Jack and Jack's friend Raleigh, entered the jungle to discover the city and never returned. The book tells us all of this in the first few pages, but then goes on to fill us in on Fawcett's life, along with telling the "present day" journey of author David Grann to find out about Fawcett. Grann eventually goes to the Amazon himself, although not going as deep into the Amazon as his subject. For a book that has no tidy resolution, and lets us know this from the word go (we're not going to discover for sure what happened to Fawcett when no-one else has managed to do so), The Lost City of Z is grip...
Read more