Secret Adversary, by Agatha Christie - A book report of sort

might have started a new one to read without writing anything about this. Nevertheless, for the sake of writing exercise, and future reference on what this story is all about, I am writing it now.

This book, it seems to the the first book of Tuppence and Tommy. The first, or probably the only one I've read of Christie's books featuring this duo, was "What Mrs. Mc Gullicudy Saw" or Flatform 9:13 or something like that. It was quite a light read compared to the books featuring Hercule Poirot. It must have been not very easy to write a male protagonist. I believe it's pretty complicated compared to writing about a woman protagonist.

Back to Tuppence and Tommy, this book introduces the reader to the two childhood friends who ended up meeting each other in their lives. At one point during the war where Tuppence was working in a hospital as an all-around attendant (from dishwashing to attending to the patients) and Tommy as one of the soldiers/patients injured in the war. After their VAD stints, they met again while both looking for opportonity to earn something. It is in this situation that they teamed up to take up anything. After laying out their plan on advertising themselves in the papers, Tuppence stumbled onto a very interesting case of a catchy name.

Jane Finn. What's in name?
Seriously, it didn't strike me as anything special. It's just a name and there are other countless strange names across the globe. Well perhaps not during that time of writing. I mean, the war has just ended and all that.

So going back to the story, I really won't be going into the nitty gritty of it all. I would just like to take into notice how the characters were painted. There were other big characters which at one point was in my list of suspects. Sure there were a lot of other characters involved but with the build up of an apparent mastermind behind all of the complications in the story, a mysterious Mr. Brown is always the culprit. Upon realizing that this Mr. Brown is most likely one of the active characters in the story, living in another name, I was out for a possible name. As I read, I developed a hunch that it was Suspect no.1. Almost all throughout the book, my money was on him. The thing was I wasn't really that sure as I later found out because I did a doulbe take around the end when the Suspect No. 2 was pointed out as the One. But of course, all the deductions and various offhand suggestions that was built up against Suspect No. 1, indeed added up and in the end, it turned out that he indeed the one posing as Mr. Brown. Now what points led me to form that hunch? Hmm..the way the character was build up. It was so attractive, I'm not referring to the aesthetic here. Although there was another character described as interestingly but it died somewhere in the story. That brought me back to No. 1. I really admire how his character was build up. There was the instance on the mysterious poison administered, inside knowledge of things that the protagonist will be doing and such and such. It seemed that the protagonist are always one step late of what the anagonist has done. This case simply led the reader to believe that the culprit is among the people trying to help the protagonist as they solve the case. SOmething like an inside knowldge of the pursuants. Ah! This was one entertaining read for me.

I can finally move to another book and see for myself how another story plot thickens, how the characters are built and how well can I make guesses.

Now, what will be my next one? Perhaps a Ms. Marple book. I don't think I'm ready for Poirot again.