I think one of the greatest things about AC's work is that it can be enjoyed on different levels and she doesn't demand her audience fulfill any exacting literary standard. She didn't write her stories so critics and literary commentators would stand and applaude, she wrote them to enertain and appeal to anyone who picked them up. Using parodies of other well-known detectives from the same era is fun and a clever device to use, but it still works if the reader isn't aware of to whom she is referring. I imagine many, at the time of publication, wouldn't have been aware of all the characters named but none of this detracts from the stories at all and she still provides us all with a book that manages to be humourous, imaginative, inventive and seroius by turns.

When I first read the book, and it was one of the first I read, the only other detectives I had heard of were Sherlock Holmes, Poirot (naturally!) and Edgar Wallace. Since my love of detection fiction has grown and grown, I have gone on to read some of the works featuring the parodied detectives (Dr Thorndyke, The Old Man in the Corner and Inspector French) and found that knowing about these characters DOES heighten my enjoyment of the stories even more. But had I never done this, I would simply have carried on enjoying the book in the same way I did when I first discovered it.

It's just a fun book.

Tommy & Tuppence are intriguing because we watch them grow from young adults in The Secret Adversary to senior citizens in Postern of Fate.  The only drawback with the T&T stories is that there weren't enough of them.  I wish Agatha Christie had written one of their books at least every decade.  I like seeing T&T within their timeframe.  In the early books, we see them just after the Great War during the Roaring Twenties.  In the third book, we live with them through World War II.  In the later books, we visit them many years post-war and we see the differences time has caused in them and their surroundings.  If they weren't sleuthing in the last books, they wouldn't be the adventurous couple we met 50 years before.  There's a nice stability in this couple.

Partners In Crime is lots of fun because we see how they operate when investigating different cases, from basic detection to actual spy thrillers.  There's also a strong feeling of the time (1920s).  Tuppence is lively, active, and just plain fun, along with being highly adventurous.  Tommy is more laid back but adventurous nevertheless.

The stories of Partners In Crime are simple but they allow us to see the characters of T&T.  We enter their thoughts, their lives outside the office, and generally get a good sense of how this young couple cares for each other.  Their devotion throughout their series is an endearing feature.  In fact, their continued affection for Albert is particularly endearing.

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While I'm not familiar with all the fictional detectives mentioned in Partners in Crime, I find their inclusion a bonus, as we see T&T attempt to take on their personas during the investigations.  I can imagine this young energetic couple taking on the many characteristics of the storybook detectives.

Because Partners is a short story collection, I don't find it as good as the novels, but I still treasure this collection as a vital part of the Tommy and Tuppence detection series.

Although I am familiar with the detectives spoofed in Partners in Crime, T&T got so annoying after the third story (counting the first, rather unfair excuse for a story)... It's why this is one of my least favourite short story collections.

I agree with you about the first story but if I remember rightly T&T had to be enscosed in Blunt's Brilliant Detective Agency and had to be put on the trail of the Gang they caught in the last story si their wasn't that much time for a more exciting story, I like the premis of this of this book and and it is on a par with The Thirteen Problems I love this book and would love to have books featuring the other Detectives in the Book 

That doesn't excuse the fact that the story is dreadful, and the solution to it was just as horrid.

Are we thinking of the same story go_leafs? Tuppence gets her friend to help the Bussiness along by bringing a Problem to Blunt's, I can't remember the solution the girl was helping Tuppence spread the word about the Agency, I agree it was weak but quite in ventive as an opener and gave readers an idea of how fun the book is

That's the one. If you're going to have a mystery, make it a mystery at the very least. It wasn't fun at all, either. I was rather bored and outraged at the "solution" to the "mystery".

I can't say it annoyed me because it didn't Agatha had to fit so much into the opening Story it had to be a bit un interesting, from memory although the details are a bit hazy I preferred it to the story that Tommy asks Tuppence to never remind him about,

One thing I mlike about Agatha's stories is the fact that some things oon some of her stories have reminded me to not just take thge first explanation to what I am being told for instance Just because there is a place with a nan e there vcould be another way of thinking about that a word or place name, I hope you understand, although it is stated spoilers don't exist on this part of the forum I don't want to spoil things for others