Destination Unknown

By Agatha Christie

A young woman with nothing to live for is persuaded to embark on a suicide mission to find a missing scientist…

When a number of leading scientists disappear without trace, concern grows within the international intelligence community. Are they being kidnapped? Blackmailed? Brainwashed?

One woman appears to have the key to the mystery. Unfortunately, Olive Betteron now lies in a hospital bed, dying from injuries sustained in a Moroccan 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…

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Oct 14, 2010
• ISBN: 9780007422296

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She died in 1976, after a prolific career spanning six decades.

Reviews for Destination Unknown

[bcrowl399 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What a great story! Agatha Christie is so good at storytelling and creating suspense.

[nordie_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I started to listen to this (2011) and remembered that I had read this a long time ago.

Olive's husband disappears from Paris, and as a scientist just after the war, his disappearance makes people nervous. Olive travels to Morrocco to escape things, but ends up fatally injured in a plane crash,

Meanwhile Hilary Cravern sits in a hotel room planning her suicide after her daughter has died and her husband has left her. As she has a passing resemblance to Olive (Same height and age, red coloured hair) she is persuaded to embark on a probable suicide mission to find out where all these scientists have disappeared to.

]Much of the book is spent then in covering Hilary's journey and the corresponding search for her in the wide expanse of North Africa

Audible version read by Emilia Fox, who performed a satisfactory role, though her American was a little less jarring than her European accents

[sueincyprus · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An exciting thriller, based in the 1950s, involving some missing scientists. A depressed woman agrees to impersonate someone's wife, and sets off, with little idea of where she's going, in the hope of being led to the unknown destination where he might be.It's not a typical Agatha Christie mystery, but I thought the characterisation rather better than normal for this author, and the story very well-written. Inevitable racist language here and there, and some complex politics and dated science, but in general, a much better book than I would have expected. Lots of twists and turns in the last chapters, most of which I had not expected. Recommended.

[therebelprince · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

In which a grieving, abandoned woman finds herself caught up in Soviet espionage, and the hunt for a missing scientist.

A contemporary review of "Destination Unknown" called this “a delicious busman’s holiday” for Dame Agatha, and it’s hard to disagree. This is a by-the-numbers thriller with a slightly ludicrous, bare-bones plot which – having said that – could easily be used as the basis for a big-budget Hollywood summer blockbuster. It’s not a complete loss: the central character, Hilary Craven, is one of the more intensely-drawn protagonists of a non-series novel, for instance. But at the end of the day, this is just another Christie thriller, with everything that entails.

[antiquary_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not a mystery in the sense of solving a conventional crime. Important (or at lest promising) scientists are vanishing all over the world . British Intelligence persuades Hilary Craven, a young woman on the verge of suicide, to instead take the risk of impersonating the wife of the British scientist Thomas Betterton. He ha vanished 6 months before, ad his wife is dying after a plan crash in Morocco while (it is thought) se was on her way to join him. Hilary undertakes the impersonation and finds it is true --she and a party of scientists are assembled as apparent tourists in Morocco and then supposedly killed in a fake plane crash; actually they are taken away to a hidden base which is not (as originally BI had thought) run by the Soviets. The book has a resemblance to Christie's later work Passenger to Frankfort, though there the protagonists were older.

[hanneri_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An intriguing work from Agatha Christie, and a departure from her usual mystery genre. Christie wrote several spy novels, and many of her trademarks are evident, but the overall effect of this book was rather contrived and unconvincing.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Book on CD read by Emilia Fox

A brilliant young scientist has disappeared from Paris. The international community is concerned, as he is only one of several scientists who have recently dropped from sight. His wife, Olive Betterton, may know more than she is willing to say, but she lies in a Moroccan hospital bed, dying from injuries sustained in a plane crash. Meanwhile, Hilary Craven is in the grips of depression – her daughter has died, her husband has left her. She has nothing to live for … until British secret agent Jessop offers her a chance to help her country.

This is a cold-war spy thriller that is obviously dated. The characters and plot include the aforementioned brilliant scientists, double agents, an evil genius mastermind, an exotic locale, a secret laboratory, a beautiful heroine, and a strong handsome hero. Christie was a master at writing a suspenseful thriller, and all the hallmarks of her craft are here. But the plot is so dated and the spy / evil genius theme so over-the-top by today’s standards as to be laughable. I wound up thinking Get Smart rather than James Bond.

Emilia Fox does a pretty good job of the “normal” characters. She even has a great brassy American accent for one tourist Hilary encounters. But her evil genius character is just laughable. Makes me wonder if Christie intended this to be a campy take-off of the spy thriller genre.

[otterlake_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Is it just me, or is they a faint whiff presaging Ayn Rand....scientists disappearing to be able to work for the good of humanity? whether that be behind the iron curtain, in mid-america, or so other destination.

[nocto_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not a Christie I'd heard of before and not a regular mystery. Good first half, I like the way someone about to commit suicide is offered a mission with a good chance of death instead. The plot goes gradually downhill in the second half really. This is a kind of spy thriller which falls somewhere between vintage and dated. Having finished it I am more inclined towards "vintage" for the good descriptive aspects of travelling in the 1950s rather than "dated" for some of the plot devices, I was at least pleased it didn't fall into the whole "oh no not the communists" pit that I it teetered on the edge of for a while. Not a book I'd recommend to anyone else really, but not one I regret picking up.

[ludi_ling · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of those books that I shouldn't even like, but happen to adore. And not just because it's a Christie book. It is very much a child of its times - it is diffuse with the paranoia of the 1950's Cold War, puts conspiracy theory in a fast car and runs away with it. Every twist and turn manages to outdo the next, becoming more and more incredible and nonsensical as the story progresses. There is no way a plot as convoluted and over-wrought as this could ever happen in real life. The plot holes are more gaping than the Grand Canyon.And yet... This is a book that I could read over and over and thoroughly enjoy it. Taken with just the right pinch of salt, a gung-ho attitude and a healthy suspension of disbelief, this is a rewarding romp of a book that makes no serious demands of its reader, nor does it take itself too seriously. Its characters are a pastiche of various noir B-movie types; its plot is eerily reminiscent of The Big Four, but with a tighter, more engaging plot. It does not pretend to be anything more than it is - a light, entertaining, if slightly fantastical read.

[reading_fox · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Unusual Chrisitie story, that doesn't feature any of her series detectives.A suicidal woman is recruited to help look for a batch of missing scientists. Has the Chrisites charm of World War england, and the usual 'England rules' colonialism of the time. Not her best work, but interesting and different from many of her more famous pieces.

[jayne_charles_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This had a different feel to the other Agatha Christies I have read. It's a thriller more than a murder mystery. People mysteriously disappearing, people turning out to be not quite what they seem, and once the disappearances are explained, the interest doesn't end there. A highly enjoyable journey into the unknown, as the title suggests. Not one of Agatha Christie's most well known books, but definitely worth a read.

[riverwillow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a Christie conspiracy thriller, in which scientists (and other brilliant minds) are disappearing across the world. Hilary Craven, bereaved and newly divorced, gets caught up in the investigation at the request of a unlikely looking spy.

[bookangel_a · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed the mystery of it all, but it was a little too much of a spy/Communist plot for my tastes. I prefer murder mysteries over espionage in the majority of cases. I did like the satisfying ending, though.

[misswoodhouse1816 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Once again, Agatha Christie created a brilliantly complex thriller. It's a nice change from her straightforward mysteries, with some unique characters mixed in with all of her standard ones.

[mrtall_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Destination Unknown, a kind of conspiracy-driven thriller, is not Agatha Christie at her best. Many of the world's top young scientists are disappearing mysteriously, and a bereft, suicidal young woman is commissioned by an unnamed secret agency to go undercover to help track them down.There's little to recommend here, as the story proceeds mechanically and ends in a rather silly scene that's reminiscent of an investigation into spiking the punch at a school dance, rather than cracking a nefarious scheme to rule the world, etc, etc.The book is set mostly in North Africa, but even this potential for exoticism goes unfulfilled; mostly, the principals hang about at hotels full of other Europeans. The one point of real interest here is Christie's depiction of communism and fellow travelers.

[mirihawk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While one cannot agree with Ms.Christie about the psychology of women, the book itself was interesting and kept my attention from start to finish. It was read well by Ms. E. Fox.