Before You Begin

Before you begin.

A packet of scandalous royal memoirs, a fortune in stolen rubies, an international jewel-thief who is never who he seems, and a corpse in the Council Chamber of a great English house — The Secret of Chimneys is Agatha Christie at her most sparkling and audacious. The easy-going adventurer Anthony Cade takes on one simple errand and is swept into a whirl of blackmail, murder, and Balkan intrigue at the country house called Chimneys, with the imperturbable Superintendent Battle watching quietly from the wings.

Published in 1925, this early thriller introduced Superintendent Battle — one of Christie's great recurring detectives — and shows off the wit, misdirection, and sheer fun that made her the Queen of Crime. Half country-house mystery, half Ruritanian adventure, it races from the African veldt to Mayfair to a Balkan throne-room, and keeps its best secret to the very last page.

This illustrated edition opens the mystery into a gallery of plates — the cast and their portraits, the map of Chimneys and the wider world of the affair, the great scenes, and six movement plates you unlock as you read, each drawing the story so far together without giving the game away. Watch everyone closely — in a Christie, no one is quite what they appear.