Ratings13
Average rating3.3
Hilary Craven has lost the will to live, Mrs Betterton is already dead. Then Hilary is asked to impersonate the dead woman and to trace her husband - a missing nuclear scientist - and her will to live returns. A faked air disaster, a string of radio-active pearls, a leper colony floundering in the dry heat of the Moroccan desert. Hilary is lead towards a terrifying discovery and her new found enthusiasm for life turns into ice-cold fear...Christie based this book partly on the activities of two famous physicists of the early 1950s: Bruno Ponecorvo, who defected to Russia, and Emil Fuchs, who spied for the Russians. It is another of Christie's light-hearted thriller novels featuring a daring and fearless heroine.
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Reviews with the most likes.
I read this quickly in one train trip, which I think is how it's best read. ;)
I appreciate that other reviewers here have pointed out that this is more political thriller (set in the 1950s) than mystery. As someone who doesn't read many thrillers, I found it often tense and intriguing, though I agree with others who have said the characters came across a bit flat. They did have many philosophical conversations in the midst of all the running away/trying to escape, which felt a bit set up at times but still very reflective of the time.
Overall, I enjoyed it, but probably won't feel the need to read it again.
This one is less of a mystery and more of a spy novel. Like her other spy novels, it verges on the ridiculous. Though, that seems appropriate for a time when lots of spy novels and movies were a bit far-fetched. It is overall entertaining but not her true forte. I prefer her tommy and tuppence novels for the spy stuff.