From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

Destination Unknown

Agatha Christie

Start date: November 1, 2021

Finish date: November 30, 2021

Discussion: Group Challenges

Why we're reading this: Another title in our Assorted Christies challenge.
[close] Another title in our Assorted Christies challenge.

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Group Challenges

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) by Agatha Christie
By Susan · 14 posts · 16 views

last updated Sep 02, 2025 12:08AM

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) - SPOILER Thread
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last updated Sep 01, 2025 04:16PM

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What Members Thought

Oct 19, 2021 Susan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Although Agatha Christie is my all time favourite author, I must admit that I prefer her murder mysteries to her adventure stories of plucky heroines and derring-do. However, this 1954 spy story does, indeed, contain a plucky heroine; although one who is lost when we first meet her. Hilary Craven has certain similarities with Christie's own past - she had one daughter (although in Hilary's case, her young daughter has died) and, like Agatha herself, Hilary's husband had left her for another woma ...more

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Jul 13, 2013 Lady Clementina ffinch-ffarowmore rated it really liked it

Shelves: british, mystery, agatha-christie, science, thriller

Destination Unknown, first published in 1954, is a standalone by Christie that falls firmly into her thriller category, in fact even more so than some of her other thrillers I have read/reread recently as we have no murder mystery at the start (as for instance, in The Man in the Brown Suit, They Came to Baghdad or The Secret at Chimneys), but more of a spy plot. I read this as the November pick for my Goodreads group challenge reading lesser known Christies this year.

The book opens with a couple Destination Unknown, first published in 1954, is a standalone by Christie that falls firmly into her thriller category, in fact even more so than some of her other thrillers I have read/reread recently as we have no murder mystery at the start (as for instance, in The Man in the Brown Suit, They Came to Baghdad or The Secret at Chimneys), but more of a spy plot. I read this as the November pick for my Goodreads group challenge reading lesser known Christies this year.

The book opens with a couple of secret agents Wharton and Jessop who are dealing with the problem of top scientists going missing, having possibly ‘crossed the Iron curtain’. Thomas Betterton, a scientist who has worked on some important technology, has like these others, recently disappeared. His wife, Olive, claims she knows nothing about his disappearance and looks suitably worried, but the agents are convinced she knows more than she is letting on. Parallelly, we meet Hilary Craven, a woman whose marriage has broken up (her husband has remarried), and who has lost her only child to an illness. Heart-broken and in deep despair, she tries first to escape her past by travelling to Morocco, and when she realises this will cure nothing, by attempting suicide. But also in Morocco, is agent Jessop who is on the trail of Olive Betterton. When Olive dies in an accident, Jessop convinces Hilary who is a lot like Olive in appearance to take her place and help them track down the missing scientists.

Hilary agrees and so begins her adventure where at first, she must travel to different destinations in Morocco following Olive Betterton’s itinerary; here she meets other British and American travellers, and waits to see what happens. She almost begins to believe it a pointless exercise, but then, she is contacted by someone, and with that begins another journey, which takes her not quite to the place she was expecting to be taken, and where she finds things very different from what she had thought, as well.

As I always write when I review Christie’s thrillers, these are no where near the same level as her traditional mysteries but if one suspends disbelief a little (in some cases anyway), they can be a fair bit of fun for she does have likeable characters (and mostly very spunky heroines) and builds up the suspense very well; and of course, there is always a twist one doesn’t see coming.

So was the case with this one. Destination Unknown has in fact surprised me each time I read it—this was the third or may be even fourth time I read it. When I had read it previously, I had forgotten whodunit and was in for a good surprise while on this read, I remembered who but what exactly was done I couldn’t quite remember, so once again I had fun reading it. While in the initial parts of the story one is involved in Hilary’s story and the sorrow she has had to bear, once the adventure, and her journey as Olive begins, one really begins to get pulled into that thread wondering just where we are going, and what we will find there. Like many of the other heroines in Christie’s thrillers, Hilary too, is spirited and doesn’t let anything faze her.

The missing or rather defecting scientist plot is something I think was a valid concern at the time the book was written (the Wikipedia entry for the book mentions scientists from Los Alamos who vanished), and something that has been explored by other authors as well, including if I remember right, Enid Blyton, in one of the Famous Five books. The plot touches on issues of politics (at least the characters different political beliefs), science and scientists’ need for freedom to do their work, and also the related moral considerations. Alongside we have another plot that is moving along, and another mystery, which is revealed only towards the end, but to which we realise we have been given clues all through, and which I certainly didn’t see coming the first time around.

We also have a romance thread, more than one character with secrets or hidden identities, and some local colour which we encounter during Hilary’s travels in Morocco.

All in all, this made for a fun revisit. 3.75 stars ...more

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Sep 06, 2022 Grisette rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 3rd-pers-narration, my-kind-of-detective-thriller

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
3.8 stars

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🔹️ Number of death/s: 1 (off book)
🔹️ Motive for the crime: Money
🔹️ Method of crime: Poison (not specified)
🔹️ Main location: Morocco
🔹️ Notable element: A James Bond villain atmosphere, only averted into extreme capitalism
🔹️ Book type: Novel, Amateur Detective
🔹️ Reference to SH: -

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I have read most AC books, but this book is the only book for which I had no inkling of the subject matter. And so, it was with gleeful energy that I jumped into it blind.

Most ...more

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Dec 19, 2018 Shabbeer Hassan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: thriller, 2018, detective-thriller

So what happens when the queen of mystery decides to write a fast-paced spy thriller? Do we get gold or rather a sorry, stretched-out affair? The answer surprisingly and rather refreshingly (after reading the tired, Mc-Gyver ish Jack Reacher novels) is bloody good!

We have international intrigue, a spidery web of deception, multiple identities, unwitting spies, Cold War-esque theatre of war and a credible, twisty mystery at the heart of it all.

My Rating - 4/5

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Oct 22, 2021 Jill rated it really liked it

Shelves: agatha-christie

Hilary Craven is a woman who feels her life is no longer worth living, as her child has died and her husband has left her for another woman. On gathering the means to end her life, she is approached by a Mr Jessop, who is part of the secret service. By using her reason of suicide, he is able to talk into becoming a spy, and to take on the personality of a scientist's wife who is dying having been the victim of a plane crash. Hilary agrees to do this and from then poses as a Mrs Olive Betterton, ...more

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Nov 06, 2021 Frances rated it really liked it

So this is one of Christie's thriller novels, and it was very engaging. While there was the usual gender stereotypes that tend to plague Christie novels, her heroine was quite strong willed and clever, and the plot, though far-fetched, had enough twists and turns that, as usual, Christie managed to keep some surprises right to the end. ...more

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