Writing Partners

To celebrate the new Tommy & Tuppence TV series, a brand new anthology of Golden Age detective stories by the writers who helped to inspire Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime.

Agatha Christie’s Partners in Crime paid tribute to her crime-writing colleagues by including references to their detectives in a game of literary pastiche. These detectives and their authors were household names in the 1920s, but most are now long forgotten and the ingenuity of Christie’s parodies is lost to time.

The blurb on Partners in Crime's first edition declared: ‘This delightfully witty book will come as a pleasant surprise to all admirers of these ingenious detective thrillers for which Agatha Christie is famous. It tells the story of the amazing adventures of two amateur detectives – Tommy, a remarkable young man of thirty-two, and his equally remarkable wife, Tuppence – who follow the methods of famous detective heroes, such as Sherlock Holmes, Inspector French, Roger Sheringham, Bulldog Drummond, Father Brown and even Monsieur Poirot himself.’

Nowadays we might recognize Sherlock Holmes, Inspector French and Father Brown, but who were Malcolm Sage, Thornley Colton, Desmond Okewood and Dr Thorndike? How did Inspector Hanaud, Reggie Fortune and the Old Man in the Corner solve crimes? And did Agatha Christie really parody herself?

Featuring some of the finest authors of the Golden Age, this long overdue anthology will have special resonance for Agatha Christie fans. Introduced and contextualised by Agatha Christie expert Dr John Curran, these stories will shine a new light, not only on the unfamiliar authors who inspired Agatha Christie, but also on one of her own most enjoyable short story collections.

Reviews

'Christie has Tommy and Tuppence take famous crime writers as inspirations for their various cases: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Wallace, and other mystery writers of the time who have fallen into obscurity.' Dan Callahan, Stolen Holiday

About the author

The detectives and authors featured in this anthology are Malcolm Sage by Herbert Jenkins, Dr Thorndike by R. Austin Freeman, Desmond Okewood by Valentine Williams, McCarty & Riordan by Isobel Ostrander, Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, Thornley Colton by Clinton H. Stagg, Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton, John Macready by Edgar Wallace, The Old Man in the Corner by Baroness Orczy, Inspector Hanaud by A. E. W. Mason, Inspector French by Freeman Wills Crofts, Roger Sheringham by Anthony Berkeley, Reggie Fortune by H. C. Bailey and Hercule Poirot by Agatha Christie. The stories were selected by David Brawn and introduced by John Curran.