I think one of the greatest things about AC's work is that it can be enjoyed on different levels and she doesn't demand her audience fulfill any exacting literary standard. She didn't write her stories so critics and literary commentators would stand and applaude, she wrote them to enertain and appeal to anyone who picked them up. Using parodies of other well-known detectives from the same era is fun and a clever device to use, but it still works if the reader isn't aware of to whom she is referring. I imagine many, at the time of publication, wouldn't have been aware of all the characters named but none of this detracts from the stories at all and she still provides us all with a book that manages to be humourous, imaginative, inventive and seroius by turns.

When I first read the book, and it was one of the first I read, the only other detectives I had heard of were Sherlock Holmes, Poirot (naturally!) and Edgar Wallace. Since my love of detection fiction has grown and grown, I have gone on to read some of the works featuring the parodied detectives (Dr Thorndyke, The Old Man in the Corner and Inspector French) and found that knowing about these characters DOES heighten my enjoyment of the stories even more. But had I never done this, I would simply have carried on enjoying the book in the same way I did when I first discovered it.

It's just a fun book.

Tommy & Tuppence are intriguing because we watch them grow from young adults in The Secret Adversary to senior citizens in Postern of Fate.  The only drawback with the T&T stories is that there weren't enough of them.  I wish Agatha Christie had written one of their books at least every decade.  I like seeing T&T within their timeframe.  In the early books, we see them just after the Great War during the Roaring Twenties.  In the third book, we live with them through World War II.  In the later books, we visit them many years post-war and we see the differences time has caused in them and their surroundings.  If they weren't sleuthing in the last books, they wouldn't be the adventurous couple we met 50 years before.  There's a nice stability in this couple.

Partners In Crime is lots of fun because we see how they operate when investigating different cases, from basic detection to actual spy thrillers.  There's also a strong feeling of the time (1920s).  Tuppence is lively, active, and just plain fun, along with being highly adventurous.  Tommy is more laid back but adventurous nevertheless.

The stories of Partners In Crime are simple but they allow us to see the characters of T&T.  We enter their thoughts, their lives outside the office, and generally get a good sense of how this young couple cares for each other.  Their devotion throughout their series is an endearing feature.  In fact, their continued affection for Albert is particularly endearing.

(post continued)

While I'm not familiar with all the fictional detectives mentioned in Partners in Crime, I find their inclusion a bonus, as we see T&T attempt to take on their personas during the investigations.  I can imagine this young energetic couple taking on the many characteristics of the storybook detectives.

Because Partners is a short story collection, I don't find it as good as the novels, but I still treasure this collection as a vital part of the Tommy and Tuppence detection series.

Although I am familiar with the detectives spoofed in Partners in Crime, T&T got so annoying after the third story (counting the first, rather unfair excuse for a story)... It's why this is one of my least favourite short story collections.

I agree with you about the first story but if I remember rightly T&T had to be enscosed in Blunt's Brilliant Detective Agency and had to be put on the trail of the Gang they caught in the last story si their wasn't that much time for a more exciting story, I like the premis of this of this book and and it is on a par with The Thirteen Problems I love this book and would love to have books featuring the other Detectives in the Book 

That doesn't excuse the fact that the story is dreadful, and the solution to it was just as horrid.

Are we thinking of the same story go_leafs? Tuppence gets her friend to help the Bussiness along by bringing a Problem to Blunt's, I can't remember the solution the girl was helping Tuppence spread the word about the Agency, I agree it was weak but quite in ventive as an opener and gave readers an idea of how fun the book is

That's the one. If you're going to have a mystery, make it a mystery at the very least. It wasn't fun at all, either. I was rather bored and outraged at the "solution" to the "mystery".

I can't say it annoyed me because it didn't Agatha had to fit so much into the opening Story it had to be a bit un interesting, from memory although the details are a bit hazy I preferred it to the story that Tommy asks Tuppence to never remind him about,

One thing I mlike about Agatha's stories is the fact that some things oon some of her stories have reminded me to not just take thge first explanation to what I am being told for instance Just because there is a place with a nan e there vcould be another way of thinking about that a word or place name, I hope you understand, although it is stated spoilers don't exist on this part of the forum I don't want to spoil things for others

SOME SPOILERS BELOW

Apart from Sherlock Holmes and Poirot, I am not at all familiar with the mystery novels these stories are spoofing.  One of these days, I must be sure to read up on the "great masters".  

But, I still love Partners in Crime.   

First, I love that Dame Agatha refuses to make one more prominent over the other.  In other words, it is not that Tommy is the "smart" one and Tuppence the "silly" one, or vice versa.  Rather, it is that Tommy displays flashes of brilliance, and Tuppence displays flashes of brilliance.  As a reader, this kind of situation keeps me on edge because it tells me that I can never really trust the intuitive musings of the characters until the denouement (which is a good thing because it keeps me in suspense). 

Second, I love the rapport between these two.  In particular, they work together by using bits of information that has been provided by the other.  An example of this, and one of my favorite moments in this collection, has to be the bit in the "Finessing the King"/"Gentleman Dressed in Newspaper" story about the newspaper dots.  I think it was Tommy that first explained the notion of the newspaper dots, and then, Tuppence later uses that information to unearth a vital clue about an all-important torn newspaper sheet.  Brilliant!!!!

What are your favorite stories from this collection?  Mine are:

"The Case of the Missing Lady": I love this one because the solution is completely outrageous and hilarious. 

"House of Lurking Death": This is definitely the darkest of all the stories here.  The body count is unusually high for a Christie short story. 

"Finessing the King/Gentleman Dressed in Newspaper": I love the way T&T complement each other so well here. 

"The Man Who Was No. 16": Moreso for the personal story between T&T than anything else, it is great how Tommy really shows his love for Tuppence when she is placed in danger, and the ending about their future is utterly charming and uplifting. 

"Fairy in the Flat/Pot of Tea": I like how this one just pulls the wool over the reader's eyes. 

It is a long time since I read the book but I liked them all equally with the possible exception of the one which takes up 2 Chapters and that is only because it didn't fit the others because it took 2 Chapters which makes you think it isn't a book of short stories, Sorry to be Padantic and sorry I can't remember the name of it.

Thanks for the reply, sir!   And no need to apologize!  I don't think your post was pedantic, and even if it were, there is no problem with being pedantic! 

There were a few stories that were divided into two chapters.  Off the top of my head, there was "Finessing the King/Man Dressed up in Newspaper" (about the masquerade ball party), there was "Fairy in the Flat"/"Pot of Tea" (their first case at Blunts Agency), there was the one about the murder at the golf course, etc. 

Is there a reason why these stories were divided into two chapters?

I assume they were published originally in a newspaper or a magazine in weekly portions and some of the stories were divided into two and spread over two weeks. So, part one and part two (so to speak) had different titles but were actually the same story. But this is just a guess of mine and may well be wrong. I know much of AC's work was serialised in magazines such as The Strand early in her career.

Thank you, Puffinjill, for the post and the very educated guess.  That makes sense to me if indeed that were true. 

However, my next question would be why would Dame Agatha choose to divide up certain stories and not others?  For instance, there is nothing particularly about the story of "Finessing the King" that necessarily demands a two-chapter arrangement.  Indeed, it feels as though it could have been told in one "chapter". 

Leaving aside the possibility that such arragement may have been at the request of a serials publisher, is there any particular literary quality about such stories that merit a two-chapter arrangement? 

Perhaps she thought some looked better in 2 Parts, I don't know the answer to the second part of your question.

Was it any longer than the rest of them? Maybe it was so much longer that she felt she had to seperate it into two chapters. I haven't read the books yet, but I watched the movie renditions.

There, Pongo, you have me. No idea, I'm afraid, why the few that were split into two were chosen for that treatment. I don't think they would have been too long for publication in one go. But, again, perhaps it was due to the demands of the powers-that-be from the periodical or magazine that published the story. Having said that, I'm taking it for granted that my first guess that they were published in magazines is right but I may well be way off the mark!!! I'm getting lost in my guesses!!

When I read the two-parter stories, my impression for all of them is that they could have just as easily been compressed into one short story. 

I think that Puffinjill, your explanation is most plausible.  The stories certainly have that flavor of serialization.   

However, having gone back and re-read some of them, I noticed that there was a lot of time spent on showing the couple together, sitting around in their office and just talking.  Sometimes the talk could be about the actual case they were working on, or other times it could be playful banter about detective novels.  So, maybe the two-parter structure was a way of giving us more character detail and insight into T&T.  So, on the actual merits of the stories, perhaps the two-parter structure was used to give more room to T&T's playfulness and banter with each other, etc.