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Loading... Destination Unknown (1954)by Agatha Christie
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Agatha Christie ventures out of her usual Poirot or Marple mystery to reveal kidnapped scientists working in an unknown destination. The story reads like a spy novel with clandestine meetings and locations. Hilary Craven has lost her daughter and her husband and now contemplates suicide. But a British secret agent stops Hilary and urges her to join his group. Hilary Craven becomes Olive Betterton, the wife of one of the missing scientists. The scientists have converged at a location possibly in Africa to discover medical secrets for an extremely rich man. All comforts follow these scientists, except freedom. Thomas Betterton, one of the scientists, cannot function under this controlled atmosphere. His productivity falls. What will happen to him? A very intriguing idea! Agatha Christie presents a very dramatic story. One woman's husband is missing and she insists she doesn't know where he has gone; another woman's husband has left her and she thinks she has no more reason to live. Their paths cross in the midst of an investigation into missing scientists, secret identities, and treason. This entry in Christie's bibliography is different from anything else I've read by her. No whip-smart detectives, not locked room murder mysteries; instead it reads more like a wartime spy novel. There are still plenty of Christie-like twists, and I enjoyed it a great deal. This is quite different from some other Agatha books. But unlike some of her books about spying and international criminal, this one is actually really enjoyable. I like the whole promise and actually think it could make a really good movie! A latish Christie thriller with a preposterous plot, however it's a fun ride as we follow Englishwoman Hilary Craven on a trajectory from near suicide in a Moroccan hotel, through recruitment to the British Secret service, to a mad James Bond type villains lair and finally a journey's end in a lovers meeting. There's some cringeworthy moments (particularly near the end) but all it all it's still an entertaining read. no reviews | add a review
Is contained inMurder International: So Many Steps to Death, Death Comes As the End, Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie Murderers Abroad: They Came to Baghdad / Murder in Mesopotamia / The Mystery of the Blue Train / Passenger to Frankfurt / So Many Steps To Death by Agatha Christie 1950s Omnibus: They Came to Baghdad, Destination Unknown, Ordeal by Innocence, The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie Awards
A young woman with nothing to live for is persuaded to embark on a suicide mission to find a missing scientist... When a number of leading scientists disappear without trace, concern grows within the international intelligence community. Are they being kidnapped? Blackmailed? Brainwashed? One woman appears to have the key to the mystery. Unfortunately, Olive Betteron now lies in a hospital bed, dying from injuries sustained in a Moroccan plane crash. Meanwhile, in a Casablanca hotel room, Hilary Craven prepares to take her own life. But her suicide attempt is about to be interrupted by a man who will offer her an altogether more thrilling way to die... No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.912Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1901-1945LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Olive's husband disappears from Paris, and as a scientist just after the war, his disappearance makes people nervous. Olive travels to Morrocco to escape things, but ends up fatally injured in a plane crash,
Meanwhile Hilary Cravern sits in a hotel room planning her suicide after her daughter has died and her husband has left her. As she has a passing resemblance to Olive (Same height and age, red coloured hair) she is persuaded to embark on a probable suicide mission to find out where all these scientists have disappeared to.
]Much of the book is spent then in covering Hilary's journey and the corresponding search for her in the wide expanse of North Africa
Audible version read by Emilia Fox, who performed a satisfactory role, though her American was a little less jarring than her European accents ( )