Partners in Crime

A Tommy and Tuppence Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition

De: Agatha Christie

Narrado por: Hugh Fraser

Tommy and Tuppence Beresford are restless for adventure, so when they are asked to take over Blunt's International Detective Agency, they leap at the chance.

Their first case is a success - the triumphant recovery of a pink pearl. Other cases soon follow - a stabbing on Sunningdale golf course; cryptic messages in the personal columns of newspapers; and even a box of poisoned chocolates. But can they live up to their slogan of "Any case solved in 24 hours"?

©1929 Agatha Christie Limited (P)2007 HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Blunt's Brilliant Detectives

Would you consider the audio edition of Partners in Crime to be better than the print version?

I enjoyed both. I think I liked the book better because I was able to picture the two actors from the BBC adaptations. But Hugh Fraser is a wonderful narrator and brought a nice, light touch to the novel.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

I wasn't on the edge of my seat, but it wasn't that kind of book. It's a collection of short stories featuring the delightful Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. But each story was nicely written and solved.

What about Hugh Fraser’s performance did you like?

I love the way he portrayed the interplay between this charming couple. He had a nice way of capturing their playful banter.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Cocktails and crime

Good, but predictable

Characters have wonderful chemistry, humor. Plotlines are occasionally predictable or contrived. Reader brilliant. Recommended to those who just want to have fun.

Rollicking fun!

What a fun set of little puzzles Agatha Christie arranged for Tommy and Tuppence! I thoroughly enjoyed the witty banter and references to many other famous literary sleuths, but I love the warmth and heart between the couple to ground the story.

Loved it. So good

I loved the way different detectives and characters were brought into the story as well as the other stories being brought along.

Really, quite fun.

Classic Agatha Christie with an added twist of humor. Hugh Frasier does an excellent job.

let the adventures begin!

loved that you never knew what to expect. Good mysteries and light hearted. very entertaining for our road trips.

tommy and tuppence at it again

Tommy and Tuppence step into the shoes of great fictional detectives and take you along for the ride. A fun duo!

My favorite Christie detectives...

Tommy and Tuppence are my favorite detectives among Agatha Christie's well-developed pool of mystery solvers. They are so charming, bright and fun, brave and interesting. Though I generally prefer a novel over short stories, this is a continuing story. It is fun to see them mimic the techniques and characteristics of various well-known literary detectives, as they develop their skill and their business.

Witty and charming

Hugh Fraser is insanely good at embodying the stories’ characters. Clever mysteries told in delightful language.

The Lighter Side of Murder, Theft & Counterfeiting

With whodunits, my wife usually has the killer tagged well before the detective reveals all in the drawing room, while I’m happy to wait until all the suspects have found their seats there. My ingrained obtuseness when confronted with bodies in libraries is well-established. So, if I can figure out the broad general outline of a crime before Tommy or Tuppence have a clue, these stories can’t be the puzzlers one might expect from the Queen of Mystery. But then, I suspect that expectation misses the point of this collection.

The Golden Age of Crime Fiction was about more than little-known Asiatic poisons and how long it takes parsley to settle in the butter dish. It was about having fun. And it’s obvious that that’s exactly what Christie was doing here. Lucky for us; after all, Robert Frost’s dictum, “no tears in the writer, no tears in the reader” is just as true when we’re talking about laughter.

Beyond the playful banter between our two heroes, each yarn is also a good natured parody of a popular crime writer of the time. True, Herbert George Jenkins is remembered now as P. G. Wodehouse’s publisher, while The Scarlet Pimpernel overshadows the Baroness Orczy’s criminal output. Others, like Freeman Wills Crofts and Anthony Berkeley, have been revived of late through superb recordings from Soundings, Detective Club Crime Classics and HarperCollins’s growing “Bodies from the Library” series. Finally, there are the masters who still enjoy wider name recognition: Conan Doyle, G. K. Chesterton and Christie herself.

While the enjoyment runs a little deeper if one knows the author being parodied, the parody is so obvious—for every case, Tommy and Tuppance freely discuss which fictional sleuth they want to emulate—that lack of familiarity with, say, Edgar Wallace, is no impediment to laughter.

As always, Hugh Fraser is superb. A little shaky on distinguishing Tommy’s lines from Tuppence’s, he handles everything and everyone else with an effortless skill that’s a treat to listen to. The recording itself gets a little creaky in spots, too, with a sibilance and crackle that no filter on my phone could dampen.