This is a very surprising hit for me! I had decided "i don't like christie's espionage stories! 😠" after i read The Big Four (lmaooo), followed with few similar failed stories (which i forgot the titles). Even when my most favorite christie book was The Secret Adcersary lol, another espionage story. So i guess it shouldn't be very surprising that i like this. 

When i started reading this i also let out a big sigh bc ughhh this seemed like something i won't like :( and also it was so slow! especially in the beginning. The pace actually started to pickup after 50%. But i kept reading because agatha christie just wrote so well. It's very readable, and despite the slowness and literally destination unknowness of the plot, the dialogues just kept me reading. And it rewarded me with satisfying twist and twist and twist and twist!

The plot actually didn't feel like christie at all. I mean, this was definitely not a murder mystery, i guess it's more apt to be called a spy mystery. I wouldn't say it's a thriller. Too slow to be that.

There are questionable things here that felt very of its time. A couple of times i was like "uh wait.... what did she say?" bc i'm not sure about christie's political standing here. But i think the political observation here was very digestible and sharp at the same time. And we can be sure that christie was not on the side of a billionaire here. There's another huge thing that was very of its time and made my jaw literally dropped. It was so ridiculous it's almost funny. I can't speak about it more than that.

Oh and this is one of christie's books where the romance i like. Overall i mostly enjoyed this! It was especially so good and everyone was so clever around 51-80%.