CHRISTIE, Agatha Destination Unknown. London: Collins Crime Club.1954.
8vo. Publisher’s red cloth lettered in black to spine, "The Holiday Bookshop" label stamped to rear pastedown; green dust jacket with black and white title to front board and spine; pp. [vi], 191, [1]; sunning to top edge of textblock and spotting to rear pastedown, minor browning to rear panel; very good.
First edition.
Based far from Christie's typical quintessential backdrop, Destination Unknown is set in Morocco. When Hilary Craven plans her suicide, she is saved by the British secret service who recruit her to impersonate the role as wife of a nuclear scientist who has mysteriously vanished…
Although the book subtly examines the 1950s defection of famous physicists to the Soviets, the narrative also reflects the dismantling of Christie's own first marriage in 1928. Following pressure from her first husband for divorce after falling in love with a younger woman, Agatha Christie became the protagonist of her own mystery, staging an eleven day disappearance. After a significant manhunt, she was discovered in a hotel registered under the name of her husband's lover.
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