Tuppence Beresford has been married to Tommy for six years, and she is bored. She wishes something would happen. Something does: Mr Carter of British Intelligence arrives with an offer. Would the Beresfords like to run a detective agency whose last manager is now in prison? Partners in Crime is a short story collection by Agatha Christie, the second of the Tommy and Tuppence mysteries, published in 1929. It is her funniest book, and a fond parody of the fictional detectives of her day.
Who Are Tommy and Tuppence?
Tommy and Tuppence Beresford are Christie’s married amateur detectives, a lighter pair than Poirot or Miss Marple. Tommy is steady and loyal. Tuppence, born Prudence Cowley, is quicker, bolder and always the first to want an adventure. They were childhood friends who met again after the First World War, in which Tommy was wounded twice and Tuppence served as a volunteer nurse. They first appeared in The Secret Adversary in 1922.
They are Christie’s only detectives who age in real time. They are in their early twenties in the first book and over seventy in the last. Here are all five books in order:
- The Secret Adversary (1922), a novel
- Partners in Crime (1929), the short stories reviewed here
- N or M? (1941), a wartime spy novel
- By the Pricking of My Thumbs (1968)
- Postern of Fate (1973), the last novel Christie wrote
What Is Partners in Crime About?
The offer is a cover story. The International Detective Agency had been a front for enemy agents. Tommy is to pose as its manager, Mr Theodore Blunt, and Tuppence as his secretary, “Miss Robinson”. Their old ally Albert, now the office boy, answers the door. Their real job is to watch for blue letters with a Russian stamp and the number 16 written under it. They must report anyone who mentions “16”.
While they wait for the spies, they take real cases under the slogan “Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives”. There are missing pearls, a missing fiancée, a poisoning and a forged banknote ring. Inspector Marriot of Scotland Yard helps them throughout. The spy plot returns in the last story and brings the book to an end.
The Stories Included, and the Detectives They Imitate
For each case, Tommy and Tuppence copy the methods of a famous fictional detective. Christie names the model in the text every time.
| Story | Detective imitated |
|---|---|
| A Fairy in the Flat / A Pot of Tea | none: the set-up and the first case |
| The Affair of the Pink Pearl | Dr Thorndyke (R. Austin Freeman) |
| The Adventure of the Sinister Stranger | the Okewood brothers (Valentine Williams) |
| Finessing the King / The Gentleman Dressed in Newspaper | McCarty and Riordan (Isabel Ostrander) |
| The Case of the Missing Lady | Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle) |
| Blindman’s Buff | Thornley Colton, the blind detective (Clinton H. Stagg) |
| The Man in the Mist | Father Brown (G. K. Chesterton) |
| The Crackler | the thrillers of Edgar Wallace |
| The Sunningdale Mystery | the Old Man in the Corner (Baroness Orczy) |
| The House of Lurking Death | Inspector Hanaud (A. E. W. Mason) |
| The Unbreakable Alibi | Inspector French (Freeman Wills Crofts) |
| The Clergyman’s Daughter / The Red House | Roger Sheringham (Anthony Berkeley) |
| The Ambassador’s Boots | Reggie Fortune (H. C. Bailey) |
| The Man Who Was No. 16 | Hercule Poirot and Hastings (Agatha Christie) |
How many stories is that? It depends on how you count. Two of the cases run together as pairs, and the long ones are split into two chapters. So you will see 15, 17 or 23 in different sources.
Our Review: Light, Quick and Very Funny
This is Christie enjoying herself, and it is catching. Tommy and Tuppence bicker, tease each other and take turns being right. Watching Tommy put on Thorndyke’s seriousness or Father Brown’s mildness is half the fun. The last story, where Christie sends up her own Poirot, is the best joke in the book.
Some of the models have faded from memory. Few readers today know Thornley Colton or the Okewoods, so a few jokes fall flat. The critic Robert Barnard noted that many of the parodied writers are long forgotten. The parodies are not sharp enough, he added, for this to matter much. We agree. The cases themselves still work, and the best, like The Unbreakable Alibi, are real puzzles. Each short story is short enough for one sitting. Some stories are thin, and the book is best read a few chapters at a time.
When Was Partners in Crime First Published?
Most of the stories first appeared as a weekly series in The Sketch in 1924. One came out in 1923 and one in 1928. For the book, Christie changed the order and the links between them. Dodd, Mead published it in New York in 1929, and Collins followed in London on 16 September 1929.
Reviewers enjoyed it. The New York Times called it the merriest collection of detective stories it had come across. The Times Literary Supplement noted that Holmes, Thorndyke, Father Brown and even Poirot were all parodied amiably. The Daily Express was cooler and found it not quite up to her level, though entertaining enough.
TV Adaptations: Francesca Annis and James Warwick
The best-known version is the 1983–84 series from London Weekend Television. It adapted the stories themselves but dropped the spy plot and most of the parodies. Reece Dinsdale played Albert.
How many episodes are in the Partners in Crime TV series?
The 1983–84 series has 10 episodes of about 50 minutes, shown from October 1983 to January 1984. A feature-length film of The Secret Adversary, shown in October 1983, served as its pilot. The 2015 BBC One series, also called Partners in Crime, has 6 episodes. It starred David Walliams and Jessica Raine, but it adapted The Secret Adversary and N or M?, not this book. In September 2026 BritBox launched a new, present-day series, Agatha Christie’s Tommy & Tuppence, with Antonia Thomas and Josh Dylan.
Where can I watch it?
At the time of writing, the 1983–84 series streams in the United States on BritBox and through PBS Masterpiece, and it is on DVD. Streaming offers change often, so check a guide such as JustWatch for your country. There was also a BBC radio series in 1953, with Richard Attenborough and Sheila Sim as the Beresfords.
Agatha Christie and the Detectives She Parodied
A year after this book, in 1930, Agatha Christie became a founding member of the Detection Club, the dining club of Britain’s crime writers. Seven of the authors she imitates here were founding members with her, among them G. K. Chesterton, the club’s first president, Baroness Orczy and Anthony Berkeley. Christie later led the club herself, as its president from 1957 until her death in 1976. So Partners in Crime is also a portrait of the crime-writing world she was about to join.
For another light-hearted Christie with young amateur sleuths, see our Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? review. For the real Poirot, start with The Mysterious Affair at Styles.
Quick Facts
| Author | Agatha Christie |
|---|---|
| Series | Tommy and Tuppence, second book |
| Type | Linked short stories |
| First published | 1929, Dodd, Mead (New York); 16 September 1929, Collins (London) |
| Setting | London in the 1920s |
| Sleuths | Tommy and Tuppence Beresford |
| TV | Agatha Christie’s Partners in Crime (1983–84), 10 episodes |
| Next book | N or M? (1941) |
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to read The Secret Adversary first?
It helps, because it tells how the couple first met Albert and their spymaster. But each case here works on its own.
Is Partners in Crime free to read?
In the United States, yes. Books first published there in 1929 entered the public domain in 2025, and it is on Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks. Elsewhere it is still in copyright.
What is the most controversial Agatha Christie book?
Not this one. The usual answer is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, for a solution many thought broke the rules. And Then There Were None is the other candidate, because of its original title.
Is it a cozy mystery?
It is light, funny and mostly bloodless, though there are murders and a poisoning. Fans of cozy mysteries with a married sleuthing couple will feel at home. For more, see our British cozy mysteries.