Tommy & Tuppence Beresford

These are the only detectives of Christie's that are actually married. We also see them through their years as they experience full life. The first novel in which they appear (the second that Christie wrote) is titled The Secret Adversary. Young Tuppence (formerly known as Prudence Cowley) works at an officer's hospital during the war, while Thomas is a young lieutenant in the military, having traveled around the world. He meets his childhood friend Tuppence after released from service, and they start the Young Adventurers Ltd., advertising "Willing to do anything, go anywhere. Pay must be good. No unreasonable offer refused." From that they get stuck into a plot that could ruin the government and they end up in dangerous espionage, to finally succeed and foil the enemy.  (One of J. D. Hobbs' absolute favorites!)

They then get married and six years pass. Tommy has a desk job with the British Secret Service, and Tuppence is at home. The chief of British Intelligence calls upon them to take over the International Detective Agency, a former agency used by the Bolsheviks (as seen in the excellent short story collection, and their second book, Partners in Crime--which really is a ss collection, but I count it as a novel). They have great success and in the course of their lives, have three children: an adopted daughter and a set of twins.

In their middle years, they're thirsting for more adventure and have a desire to aid the war effort of WWII. They get another assignment from British Intelligence to discover the identity of a Nazi spy in N or M? Both Tommy and Tuppence have their 'his/her' roles in their tracking down the spy, which ends up in a fantastic twist at the end of the novel. They appear almost thirty years later in the novel By the Pricking of My Thumbs (a line taken from Shakespeare's Macbeth). In this novel, Tommy and Tuppence uncover a secret about a house familiar to Tuppence, connected with a painting given to Tommy's aunt. The novel ends in quite an unexpected twist.

Their fifth and last novel, Postern of Fate, was the last novel written by Agatha Christie and published in 1974. Now elderly, Tommy and Tuppence have retired and moved to a resort town. Tuppence and Tommy end up discovering the death of a young boy and the selling of submarine plans to a foreign government sixty years in the past.

Tuppence Beresford is the one who always rushes into things without common sense, although she displays great intuition and intelligence, not to mention pride. Tommy, however, is a slow thinker and loves to take his time in making decisions. He likes to be sure of the situation before acting quickly, unlike his wife Tuppence.