Passenger to Frankfurt

infobox Book |
name = Passenger to Frankfurt
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition
author = Agatha Christie
cover_artist = Not known
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series =
genre = Spy Novel
publisher = Collins Crime Club
release_date = September 1970
media_type = Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
pages = 256 pp (first edition, hardcover)
isbn = ISBN 0-002-31121-6
preceded_by = Hallowe'en Party
followed_by = The Golden Ball and Other Stories

"Passenger to Frankfurt: An Extravanganza" is a spy novel by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in September 1970Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier and Jamie Sturgeon. "Collins Crime Club – A checklist of First Editions". Dragonby Press (Second Edition) March 1999 (Page 15)] and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year [John Cooper and B.A. Pyke. "Detective Fiction - the collector's guide": Second Edition (Pages 82 and 87) Scholar Press. 1994. ISBN 0-85967-991-8] [http://home.insightbb.com/~jsmarcum/agatha68.htm American Tribute to Agatha Christie] ] . The UK edition retailed at twenty-five shillings. In preparation for decimalisation on 15 February 1971, it was concurrently priced on the dustjacket at £1.25. The US edition retailed at $5.95.

It was published to mark Christie's eightieth birthday and, by counting up both UK and US short-story collections to reach the desired total, was also advertised as her eightieth book. It is the last of her spy novels.

At the beginning of the book there is a quote by Jan Smuts :- "Leadership, besides being a great creative force, can be diabolical ..."

Plot summary

When a bored diplomat is approached in a bleak airport by a woman whose life is in danger, he agrees in a moment of weakness to lend her his passport and boarding ticket. Suddenly, Stafford Nye's own life is on the line, for he has unwittingly entered a web of international intrigue, from which the only escape is to outwit the power-crazed Countess von Waldsausen who is hell-bent on world domination through the manipulation and arming of the planet's youth, which brings with it what promises to be a resurgence of Nazi domination.

The book is noted for its ambiguous ending, unusual for Agatha Christie.

Literary significance and reception

Francis Iles (Anthony Berkeley Cox) in "The Guardian"'s issue of 15 October, 1970 said, "Of all the idiotic conventions attaching to the thriller the silliest is the idea that a car whizzing round a corner at high speed can be aimed at an intended victim who has, quite unseen, stepped off the pavement into the roadway at exactly the right moment. Agatha Christie uses this twice in "Passenger to Frankfurt". For the rest the book is largely a discursus on a favourite old theme of Mrs Christie's, the present state of the world and its future outlook, on both of which she takes a somewhat dim view. In other words, for her eightieth book a rather more serious work than usual from this author." ["The Guardian". October 15, 1970 (Page 8).]

Maurice Richardson in "The Observer" of September 13, 1970 started off by saying, "Her eightieth book and though not her best very far from her worst." He concluded: "At moments one wonders whether the old dear knows the difference between a hippie and a skinhead but she is still marvellously entertaining. I shall expect her to turn permissive for her eighty-firster." ["The Observer" September 13, 1970 (Page 28)]

Robert Barnard: "The last of the thrillers, and one that slides from the unlikely to the inconceivable and finally lands up in incomprehensible muddle. Prizes should be offered to readers who can explain the ending. Concerns the youth uproar of the 'sixties, drugs, a new Ayrian superman and so on, subjects of which Christie's grasp was, to say the least, uncertain (she seems to have the oddest idea of what the term 'Third World' means, for example). Collins insisted she subtitle the book 'An Extravaganza.' One can think of other descriptions." [Barnard, Robert. "A Talent to Deceive – an appreciation of Agatha Christie" - Revised edition (Page 202). Fontana Books, 1990. ISBN 0-00-637474-3]

Publication history

* 1970, Collins Crime Club (London), September 1970, Hardcover, 256 pp
* 1970, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), Hardcover, 272 pp
* 1972, Pocket Books (New York), Paperback
* 1973, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), Paperback, 192 pp
* 1984, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, Hardcover, ISBN 0-70-891184-6

References

External links

* [http://us.agathachristie.com/site/find_a_story/stories/Passenger_to_Frankfurt.php "Passenger to Frankfurt"] at the official Agatha Christie website