Destination Unknown (Mystery Masters Series)

Rating:
Summary: very involving story
Review: Another one of Christie's espionage potboilers contains one of her best female protagonists. Hillary Craven starts out a tragic figure and becomes by the end, a clever, determined and complex character. Slight comparisons to Passenger to Frankfurt, which expands on the disappearing scientist thread more chillingly. As usual, Agatha tops off the adventure with some nice final twists.

Rating:
Summary: ADVENTUROUS FUN
Review: As usual, when Christie boots Poirot and Mrs. Marple, you're in for an adventurous and fun book. It all starts when a harried detective stops a girl from committing suicide and asks her to step in the place of a dead woman in order to solve a mystery. From then on you have mayhem, danger, and sweeping romance. Trust me, this is a great book--especially if you're a little bored and depressed yourself!!!

Rating:
Summary: A book reminiscent of its times
Review: For those who had enjoyed children adventure books like those written by Enid Blyton or Capt WE Johns, this book would
have fit right in.

Unlike other novels by the writer, this book is not a mystery
book but an adventure book. There is no who-done-it, though
there are few clues left around, there is no crime actually defined.

Scientists from the West have gone missing. When the wife of one such scientist went on a holiday, supposedly to recover from the trauma, British agents had her tailed, suspecting she could lead them to the whereabouts of the missing scientists. But when her plane crashed and she was seriously injured, the trail appeared to go cold. Enter Hilary Craven, a suicidal woman who bore a passing resemblance. Offered a more exciting way to die in an almost certainly fatal missiong, she eagerly took the chance.

Not knowing what she could expect to find, the British agents could brief her little except to play-it-by-ear. As they hoped, she was accepted as the supposed wife, and led to be with her supposed husband. But as closely as the British agents trailed her, the adversary was a step ahead to outsmart the shadowers and Hilary found herself in an unexpected place, with even more unexpected encounters.

Would she survive, or would she be exposed as an impostor? The strangely diverse people she had for travelling companions on her way to the lair of the enemy made her wonder if the whole business was what it really appeared to be.

In Hilary, the writer had a perfect character for such a mission, a person who had no desire for self preservation, and could mold herself into another being who had a dual purpose in life, one as a impostor wife, another as an undercover agent.
To paraphrase a line from a popular song, when she fooled the others, she fooled herself as well and through the ordeal, she actually became the force which pushed others to cling on to hope, and eventually, regaining her sense and purpose of existence.

A highly enjoyable book, in the cast of adolescent adventure but written for adults.

Rating:
Summary: Christie Excels With Story of International Intrigue
Review: Hilary Craven, the heroine of this story, wishes to commit suicide. The sleeping pills are on her bedside table and all is ready for self-imposed death when a knock on the door changes her plans. A young man tells her the story of a nuclear physicist who has disappeared. Hilary, intrigued by the drama, agrees to impersonate the scientist's wife and begins an improbable masquerade that leads her deep into Africa to an unknown destination.

This is a book you will probably want to read in one sitting because of its breathless excitement which culminates in a surprising ending.

Rating:
Summary: Christie Excels With Story of International Intrigue
Review: Hilary Craven, the heroine of this story, wishes to commit suicide. The sleeping pills are on her bedside table and all is ready for self-imposed death when a knock on the door changes her plans. A young man tells her the story of a nuclear physicist who has disappeared. Hilary, intrigued by the drama, agrees to impersonate the scientist's wife and begins an improbable masquerade that leads her deep into Africa to an unknown destination.

This is a book you will probably want to read in one sitting because of its breathless excitement which culminates in a surprising ending.

Rating:
Summary: A Big Ol' Pile of Goodness
Review: Hillary Craven, the main character in this exhilarating story, wishes to take her own life. Just before she takes the pills that will end her life. A man knocks. The man's name -- Jessop. This character is introduced as a detective but what is he really?

The "Red Herring" was not an effective device in this book. I knew what was going to happen, and it did. It turns out the butler did it! (No, just kidding.)

In a wild twist of events, the killer is revealed ...
But I can't tell you who it is, you'll have to read it for yourself to find out "whodunnit".

Rating:
Summary: Satisfying thriller
Review: I'm not much of a fan of the thriller genre - there's usually so much detailed intrigue that I can't even keep up with what's happening, let alone figure out what's really going on. So hooray for Agatha Christie! Her thrillers are plot-focused (rather than designed to show off how clever she thinks she is), admirably economical, and contain some really appealing characters.
Hilary Craven is a woman who has lost her husband and child, and is seeking escape by travelling to Morocco. But once there, she discovers that her problems are within her - that there is no escape. She decides to end her life, but is interrupted by the practical Mr Jessop. Jessop has previously been encountered investigating the disappearance of Thomas Betterton, another brilliant scientist who has vanished without a trace. He suggests that if Hilary is so bent on death, she could make herself useful to him while she seeks it. Deciding that she's up to the challenge and convinced that death is what she really wants, Hilary impersonates the wife of Thomas Betterton and heads off into the unknown. She waits for Mrs Betterton's mysterious allies to contact her and take her to join her "husband", knowing she will be beyond help if her ruse is discovered. And once she is contacted, then the fun really begins.
Is there a happy ending? ... Hilary is a great character, the mystery she gets caught up in is a satisfying one, and as with all Christie novels, there is a great sense of era as the concerns and foibles of the 1950s (when this book was written) are brought to life.

Rating:
Summary: An Entertaining But Minor Cold War Thriller
Review: In the 1920s and 1930s Agatha Christie often created novels that were more "thriller" than "mystery"--but as time passed she became less and less interested in such material. 1954's DESTINATION UNKNOWN (also published as SO MANY STEPS TO DEATH) is one of her few such novels from the latter half of her career.

The novel has a topical story line that references the Cold War, defections, and even the notorious House Unamerican Activities Committee. In the aftermath of her child's death and a painful divorce, Hilary Craven travels to the Middle East in an effort to escape her past--and when this fails determines to kill herself. But her attempt at suicide is foiled when she is confronted with an intelligence officer aware of her intention, an intelligence officer who makes her an unusual proposal: if you are so determined to die, why not do it in a way that would serve your country? A nuclear scientist has defected; his wife, rushing to join him, has died in a plane crash. And Hilary, intrigued, agrees to take the wife's place in an effort to trace the missing scientist and uncover the intent behind his disappearance. It is a mission from which she is unlikely to return alive.

Although the premise is interesting, the resulting novel reads rather like the outline for a minor Alfred Hitchcock film. Christie writes with her usual expertise, but the characters here are not greatly memorable and the story itself falls down a bit toward the novel's conclusion. Still, it is a fast and fun read, and fans of the writer will likely enjoy it as a change of pace from her more typical fare. Mildly recommended.

--GFT (Amazon reviewer)--

Rating:
Summary: An Entertaining But Minor Cold War Thriller
Review: In the 1920s and 1930s Agatha Christie often created novels that were more "thriller" than "mystery"--but as time passed she became less and less interested in such material. 1954's DESTINATION UNKNOWN (also published as SO MANY STEPS TO DEATH) is one of her few such novels from the latter half of her career.

The novel has a topical story line that references the Cold War, defections, and even the notorious House Unamerican Activities Committee. In the aftermath of her child's death and a painful divorce, Hilary Craven travels to the Middle East in an effort to escape her past--and when this fails determines to kill herself. But her attempt at suicide is foiled when she is confronted with an intelligence officer aware of her intention, an intelligence officer who makes her an unusual proposal: if you are so determined to die, why not do it in a way that would serve your country? A nuclear scientist has defected; his wife, rushing to join him, has died in a plane crash. And Hilary, intrigued, agrees to take the wife's place in an effort to trace the missing scientist and uncover the intent behind his disappearance. It is a mission from which she is unlikely to return alive.

Although the premise is interesting, the resulting novel reads rather like the outline for a minor Alfred Hitchcock film. Christie writes with her usual expertise, but the characters here are not greatly memorable and the story itself falls down a bit toward the novel's conclusion. Still, it is a fast and fun read, and fans of the writer will likely enjoy it as a change of pace from her more typical fare. Mildly recommended.

--GFT (Amazon reviewer)--

Rating:
Summary: A letdown
Review: The scientist Thomas Betterton, a brilliant young American who developed the ZE Fission technology that can be very important for modern warfare, has disappeared suddenly out of England. Has he been kidnapped or did he depart out of free will to work for the enemy? If Betterton's wife asks for permission to leave the country for a relaxing trip to Morocco, she gets followed by security agent Jessop. It all turns bad when her plane crashes on its way to Cassablanca. Nevertheless she succeeds in continuing her trip, but is not fully aware into which beehive she stumbles.

First of all it must be stated clearly that this is not a detective story, but an atempt at an espionage novel. When Agatha published Destination Unknown in 1954, Ian Flemming had just created his famous James Bond character in the novel Casino Royale. Although Agatha clearly has the intention of making the plot flamboyant and bursting with action, she never succeeds in coming close to the fantastic plots that Flemming created. It is clear that the specialty of the Queen of Crime lies in the typical whodunit with Poirot and Marple as the key-characters and not in novels of espionage. The plot of Destination Unknown is straightforward and, although some admirable attempts were made to surprise the reader, lacks the level of suspense that normally characterizes this type of thriller.

This book certainly does not belong to Agatha Christie's highlights. But then again, it is still remarkable that seen the enormous size of her oeuvre, she only wrote but a few really bad books.