Agatha Christie - Destination Unknown

When a number of leading scientists disappear without a trace, concern grows within the international intelligence community. And the one woman who appears to hold the key to the mystery is dying from injuries sustained in a plane crash.
Meanwhile, in a Casablanca hotel room, Hilary Craven prepares to take her own life. But her suicide attempt is about to be interrupted by a man who will offer her an altogether more thrilling way to die... 

Comment: Here is one more book by Agatha Christie I had not read before. I thought this would be another whodunit, as usual, but it was surprisingly more of a thriller than a murder investigation.

Hilary Craven is a woman who feels she lost everything after the death of her child. Since then her life has been miserable and she decides she has no more will to carry on, and that is why she plans to travel to a warmer, more exotic country like Morocco, so she can say goodbye in a place where the memories aren't overwhelming.

However, her plans derail when a stranger, who saw how much sleeping pills she had bought in different places, approaches her and makes her a proposal. The thing is, several scientists have been disappearing lately and coincidentally, a plane had crashed the day before, but a specific person survived, but not for long and perhaps Hilary an be of an assistance...

I was really surprised by the turns this book took from the start. I was expecting a more similar novel to all the others the author is famous for, but it turns out that there is more to this novel than what it seems. Yes, it's not the most ingenious one, in terms of thriller, but it was quite refreshing to me anyway, and reminded me of other books with similar plots/intentions.

This isn't a big book, and the plot develops very quickly, with the reader having to read between the lines to follow some ideas and to understand the characters' motivations. In this regard, things aren't too different from the author's other books. Still, the situation with the scientists has a clear spying element to it and I will say that this isn't my favorite thing in books, but here it wasn't too bad because the point of the story was not the spying activity, but what is behind the disappearance of the scientists.

The development of the story to the point where Hilary's character becomes key in advancing things does set on many rather vague things. The plane travels between England and Morocco seem, somehow, so easy and mundane that one even wonders how much of a distance it truly is and how much bureaucracy really exists to allow for this to seem simpler than what it is. I know this doesn't have to matter but my brain kept thinking about it. I understand some elements have to be suppressed for plot's sake - many authors don't do this! - but the other side of this is that some characters feel underdeveloped.

In fact, this is the element I feel a little disappointed with here. The characters all play a role of course, and one could suppose to say the purpose of this novel was for the author to prove an idea and not that she really wanted to write such a novel. However, in the need to keep up the mystery, the suspense of what is really going on, most characters are quite superficial. In her whodunits we have more time spent on character dynamics and someone investigating, which helps us to see character development. 

Here, this felt secondary to the suspense... for instance, Hilary's actions at times felt so impossible but it was as if she could simply decide and perform that way. Thus, I assumed there was some hidden thing about her that would come to light later on and, incredible, all this makes sense now. Well, not really. I mean, I liked Hilary as a protagonist and I liked how the story ends for her, but she does come across as someone caught in this by pure chance and then she is just perfect in what she does.

In fact, to be fair, there is a twist at the end, not related to the main narrative, that did surprise me. I thought the big explanations had been given already and then we are told about one more thing regarding a certain character. It was not truly spectacular, but it was like a little extra, and I think the author just could not resist adding this little thing anyway,since she was primarily a writer of crime mysteries.

I was surprised by how much I liked this book, more than I imagined. It's not as great as my favorites by the author but it was very compelling.

Grade: 8/10