Mysteries Ahoy!

My project to read and review all of the non-series works by Agatha Christie hit a bit of a brick wall part-way through last year. I had promised that my next Christie would be The Pale Horse but somehow that just didn’t seem to grab me and I found that I was prioritizing other reading.

Late last year I realized that I couldn’t indefinitely put Christie on hold for a review that might never come and so I started to review some Poirot works. I did not forget about this project however and I eventually decided to pass over The Pale Horse and come back to it with more enthusiasm later. Instead I would tackle Passenger to Frankfurt, a novel that has a bit of a reputation as one of Christie’s worst (it is also the last non-series novel she wrote).

The novel begins with Sir Stafford Nye, a British diplomat who has been passed over for serious postings on the basis of his being a bit of a jokester, encountering a young woman in an airport. She has noticed their physical similarities and asks to borrow his passport, plane ticket and face-covering travelling cape so she can evade some people who are looking for her. Being the sort of man who doesn’t turn down an adventure when one is offered, Sir Stafford agrees and goes along with the plan, drinking a drugged beer to make the story of how he came to lose his passport and ticket more credible.

Before we go any further let’s just take a moment to consider what a terrible set of choices Nye makes here. This is partly a reflection on the differences between the world in 1970 and the world today but it is impossible to imagine this forming the plot of a novel today. One doesn’t just allow someone to assume their identity, let alone board a plane. And to deliberately drink a drink spiked with who-knows-what? I think even the adventurous would balk at that.

On returning to London he quite rightly has a lot to explain to his bosses who amazingly swallow much of the story, accepting this as just the sort of foolish thing he would be likely to do. He soon discovers however that visitors have been to his home to ‘collect’ his suit that he wore on the flight and then there is a strange message in the classified section of the paper instructing him to visit a location at a particular time…

It is rather hard to describe where this story leads from here without spoiling its secrets. In a way though it doesn’t much matter as the plot is rather disjointed and hard to follow anyway. The motivated reader may well be able to force the narrative into a sort of shape but it requires them to imagine connective tissue to stitch the various story threads together into some semblance of order. It is, quite frankly, a bit of a mess.

I am somewhat torn about where to assign blame however. I have previously written here about my feeling that some later works by established authors often suffer from being under-edited and I have a suspicion that we are in the same territory here though it could be a case of the exact opposite – material might have been trimmed by the author or editor that may have made better sense of the story.

One of the issues is that this book feels unfocused, boasting a frankly enormous cast of characters most of whom have little to do. There are several government meetings that take place, each involving their own sets of characters, all of whom say much the same sorts of things. The youth are trouble, rebellion is in the air and so on. Apparently several minor characters are recurring ones from earlier works though I will say that I wouldn’t have known that were it not for Wikipedia.

Of the characters that do stand out, none is quite so vibrant and entertaining as Aunt Matilda. She, like most of the others, reflects on the age she is living in with disappointment and regret but she also sees some signs of the dangers that might arise. She’s sometimes quite witty, at other times quite sharply judgmental. I doubt I would like her if I were to meet her but she is an interesting character and that is enough to hold the attention even if some of the stuff she says is questionable.

The reason that Aunt Matilda is so interesting to me is the way she relates to the primary themes and ideas of the work. You see, on the face of things Passenger to Frankfurt appears to be a rather reactionary piece. All the way through there are references to the dangers of youth and we hear a lot of thoughts from members of the establishment about the risks this poses. Often they focus on the superficial – the way these teenagers look and act – but few characters really reflect on why they are upset or how that may manifest itself.

Aunt Matilda is decidedly of that older generation as well as being part of that establishment. She comes from an old family, has money and lives a comfortable existence. She is also nervous about the youth movements springing up across Europe and yet she is far more interested in the causes behind them and how their outrage and protest could be guided in negative directions by those with bad intent. While it may appear quite conservative, I think that there may in fact be a case to be made that Christie is arguing that society has been too slow to change and adapt.

In that respect it feels like an extension of the themes found in At Bertram’s Hotel, another later Christie work that has its detractors. I wouldn’t say that I think it the most persuasive piece of socio-political analysis I have ever read but I am struck by the idea that Christie is trying to say something that she considers important.

Unfortunately that discussion is wrapped in a plot that is largely impenetrable, particularly in the last third of the novel. There are too many meetings, too much discussion and yet the conclusion seems disconnected with anything that preceded it (except in its relationship to the theme).

I wish I could say something more original than this but it is far from Christie at her best. Those looking for a Christie adventure-thriller would be better served seeking out Destination Unknown or The Man in the Brown Suit which are at least coherent.

Further REading

JJ @ The Invisible Event, like myself, found the book to be much more interesting thematically than it is successful as a mystery or thriller. The comments section is great too with several bloggers who have no wish to revisit the book sharing their thoughts.