A Timely Book of the Past: N or M? by Agatha Christie

Book Review
N or M? by Agatha Christie
First Published in 1941
This Edition Published by Signet (Penguin Putnam, Inc.) in 2000

NOTE: This book doesn't necessarily fit under the scope of this blog. Nevertheless, it's still interesting:-)

Written and published in 1941, this book must have been a sensation in England at the time given that the country was in the middle of the war with Germany. The mystery surrounds "the Fifth Column", or Germany's purported spies stationed in England who were to help in confusing the enemy and in guiding an invasion that could happen in the very near future.

While the dialogue seems a bit stuffy at first, Agatha Christie develops the storyline very quickly and it makes up for any American feelings of bias towards British linguistic mannerisms.

The reader is guessing the outcome of the mystery until the very end. The clues laid throughout the book are well disguised and only the most astute reader may be lucky to pick up some of them, and even then may have to tread back to look at portions of the plot the second time around. Those characteristics--an iron-clad plot and a superb mystery--are reminiscent of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories and Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.