Literary Significance and Reception
The Times Literary Supplement reviewed the novel in its issue of July 9, 1925 and after setting up the story stated favourably that "there is...a thick fog of mystery, cross-purposes and romance, which leads up to a most unexpected and highly satisfactory ending".
The Observer of June 28, 1925 said, "Mrs. Christie plunges lightheartedly into a real welter of murders, innocently-implicated lookers-on, Balkan politics (of the lighter Ruritanian kind), impersonators, secret societies, ciphers, experts, secret hiding-places, detectives (real and pretended), and emerges triumphantly at the end, before her readers are too hopelessly befogged. Nobody is killed who matters much. The right people marry, after it all, having first endeared themselves to us by their frivolous attitude to the singularly animated doings around them." The reviewer concluded that Christie's, "ingenuity and clear-headedness are really remarkable."
The Scotsman of July 16, 1925 began, "Despite Herzoslovakian politics and a background of oil and finance, this new novel by Agatha Christie gets a grip of the reader when it comes down to the business of disposing of a corpse, innocently come by but not to be repudiated without danger of grave scandal." and went on to say, "It is an exciting story with a bewildering array of potential murderers and a curious collection of detectives, amateur and professional, and with a crook of international importance and (alleged) consummate ability." The review concluded: "There is more than murder in this story; there is a treasure hunt in it, not for gold but a diamond, and the story is suitably staged for the main part at Chimneys, that historic mansion whose secret will be found in Chapter XXIX, though the wise in these matters may have discovered it a little earlier".
Robert Barnard: "If you can take all of the racialist remarks, which are very much of their time, this is a first-class romp, all the better for not being of the 'plot to take over the world' variety. It concerns the throne and crown jewels of Herzoslovakia, and combines such Hope-ful elements with bright young things and some effective caricatures. By far the least awful of the early thrillers."
Charles Osborne: "The Secret of Chimneys is one of the best of Agatha Christie's early thrillers (...). Her attitude to democracy is so unsympathetic, at least as expressed by a character of whom Mrs. Christie evidently approves, that it reveals an unexpectedly authoritarian aspect of the author's nature".
The novel was not reviewed in The New York Times Book Review
Read more about this topic: The Secret Of Chimneys
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