The Secret Of Chimneys by Agatha Christie

 

The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie.

This edition published 20th April 2017 by Harper Collins.

Originally published 1925.

From the cover of the book:

A young drifter finds more than he bargained for when he agrees to deliver a parcel to an English country house…

Little did Anthony Cade suspect that a simple errand on behalf of a friend would make him the centrepiece of a murderous international conspiracy.

Someone would stop at nothing to prevent the monarchy being restored in faraway Herzoslovakia. The combined forces of Scotland Yard and the French Surete can do no better than go in circles – until the final murder at Chimneys, the great country estate that yields up an amazing secret…

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After an accidental meeting in Bulawayo, drifter Anthony Cade agrees to a favour on behalf of an old friend - taking a memoir manuscript to a publisher in London, and returning a parcel of letters to their owner at a house in the country. How hard can it be?

Well, much more complicated than he knows, because the manuscript is actually at the centre of a power struggle in troubled Eastern European country Herzoslovakia, and both sides of the conflict are desperate to get their hands on them. And as for the letters, they offer the additional complication of a blackmail plot involving one of Europe's most wanted criminal masterminds...

As soon as Cade arrives in England, all sorts of bizarre shenanigans play out, embroiling him in a situation of national importance at famous country house Chimneys, where a secret lies waiting to be discovered. Along the way, Anthony meets the vivacious socialite Virginia Revel (by way of an unexpected incident involving the letters and a dead body), who is his ticket to Chimneys - where he coincidentally arrives on the night of another inconvenient murder. 

Enter stage right, the enigmatic Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard in his first Christie adventure, who is tasked (along with secretive Monsieur Lemoine of the French Sûreté) with getting to the bottom of all the messy goings on at the home of the delightful Lord Caterham and his plucky daughter Lady Eileen 'Bundle' Brent. 

This is one of Christie's devilishly complicated mysteries. The intricately weaving plotlines centre on political intrigue about the fictional Herzoslovakia, and the cast of players is drawn from an international setting as befits one of her more adventurous capers. There is a lot going on at any one time, which really kept me guessing about who was at the bottom of the interconnected dark deeds - and there are a lot of likely characters for you to suspect!

Many of these characters reappear in the follow-up Battle story, The Seven Dials Mystery, but this is a very different beast in nature, as it it much heavier in terms of its international plot, and not nearly as humorous as its sequel - despite the best efforts of the adorable Lord Caterham and Bundle (and her younger sisters). There are many fun elements though, particularly in the way Christie uses hidden identities (lovely twist on this theme at the end), and the romance between perfectly matched Anthony and Virginia is charming.

This was a great book to explore this month's #ReadChristie2025 theme of Detectives, with its mix of professional and amateur sleuths, and I very much enjoyed discovering it through the delightful voice talents of my favourite narrator Hugh Fraser, in the excellent audio book.

The Secret of Chimneys is available to buy now in multiple formats.

About the author:

Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in over 70 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 20 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.