Partners in Crime (short Story Collection) - Literary Significance and Reception

Literary Significance and Reception

The review of the book in the Times Literary Supplement's issue of October 17, 1929 seemed to recognise the tongue-in-cheek nature of the work when it stated, "Mrs. Christie has given an amusing twist to the episodes by suggesting that the two partners in "Blunt's Brilliant Detectives" assume on each occasion the method, the manner of speech, and the outlook favoured by some well-known detective of fiction. Holmes, Thorndyke, Father Brown and even Poirot are amiably parodied, and once or twice the solution as well as the dialogue is deliberately facetious". The review pedantically ended by saying that, "the author is incorrect in the explanation she gives of the printer's marks on newspapers, the distinction of dates which she makes really being one of editions".

The review in The New York Times Book Review of September 22, 1929 began: "To describe adequately such a book as this is no easy matter. It is a group of short detective stories within a detective novel, for there is a rather sketchy, but nonetheless absorbing plot which holds the separate tales together. The entire book and the separate stories may be taken as hilarious burlesque or parodies of current detective fiction, or they may be taken as serious attempts on the part of the author to write stories in the manner of some of the masters of the art. Taken either way they are distinctly worth while." The review concluded, "The result is the merriest collection of detective stories it has been our good fortune to encounter."

The Scotsman of September 16, 1929 said, "Detective fiction, like mathematics, tends to develop a language of its own which to the uninitiated can be a little troublesome. It is not so much a matter of 'blue-nosed automatics' and other jargon of the craft of detective fiction; the trouble is that many of the writers seem to have little command of English and cannot make their characters speak naturally. Agatha Christie is a notable exception. In this volume of stories she has conceived the ingenious idea of setting her two amateur detectives...to work out their problems after the fashion of various heroes of detective fiction. This enables her to parody the methods of various writers...in a way that is most enjoyable, for her literary skill is equal to the task. At the same time the stories are genuinely detective stories. They are well wrought and ingenious. The writer has the saving grace of humour and she does not let her detectives win too easily. By having two detectives who are usually alternately successful she has always a foil, less obtuse than 'my dear Watson'".

The Daily Express issue of October 10, 1929 gave the book a review of a couple of lines which concluded that the stories were "not quite up to her level, although they are entertaining enough".

Robert Barnard: "Tommy and Tuppence in a series of short stories which parody detective writers and their methods. Many of these are long forgotten, but the parodies are not sharp enough for this to matter very much. The House of Lurking Death anticipates the solution of Dorothy L. Sayers's Strong Poison."