Қылмыс әріптестері: Томми мен Туппенс Берсфордтың детективтік әңгімелер жинағы

Short story collection

Partners in Crime is a short story collection by British writer Agatha Christie, first published by Dodd, Mead and Company in the US in 1929 and in the UK by William Collins, Sons on 16 September of the same year. The US edition retailed at $2.00 All of the stories in the collection had previously been published in magazines (see First publication of stories below) and feature her detectives Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, first introduced in The Secret Adversary (1922). This collection of detective short stories has a theme connecting the stories, as well, "a group of short detective stories within a detective novel." The review in The New York Times Book Review of 22 September 1929 began by observing "To describe adequately such a book as this is no easy matter. It is a group of short detective stories within a detective novel, for there is a rather sketchy, but nonetheless absorbing plot which holds the separate tales together. The entire book and the separate stories may be taken as hilarious burlesque or parodies of current detective fiction, or they may be taken as serious attempts on the part of the author to write stories in the manner of some of the masters of the art. Taken either way they are distinctly worth while." The review concluded that "The result is the merriest collection of detective stories it has been our good fortune to encounter." The Scotsman of 16 September 1929 said,Detective fiction, like mathematics, tends to develop a language of its own which to the uninitiated can be a little troublesome. It is not so much a matter of 'blue nosed automatics' and other jargon of the craft of detective fiction; the trouble is that many of the writers seem to have little command of English and cannot make their characters speak naturally. Agatha Christie is a notable exception. In this volume of stories she has conceived the ingenious idea of setting her two amateur detectives to work out their problems after the fashion of various heroes of detective fiction. This enables her to parody the methods of various writers in a way that is most enjoyable, for her literary skill is equal to the task. At the same time the stories are genuinely detective stories. They are well wrought and ingenious. The writer has the saving grace of humour and she does not let her detectives win too easily. By having two detectives who are usually alternately successful she has always a foil, less obtuse than 'my dear Watson'. The Daily Express issue of 10 October 1929 gave the book a review of a couple of lines which concluded that the stories were "not quite up to her level, although they are entertaining enough". Robert Barnard described this as: "Tommy and Tuppence in a series of short stories which parody detective writers and their methods. Many of these are long forgotten, but the parodies are not sharp enough for this to matter very much. The House of Lurking Death anticipates the solution of Dorothy L. Sayers's Strong Poison."

In A Fairy in the Flat, Tommy and Tuppence look at a blemish on a photograph, the shape of which resembles a fairy, and Tuppence suggests writing to Conan Doyle about it. This is a reference to the Cottingley Fairies, a media cause célèbre of the early 1920s, centred on five photographs. The photographs, taken by two girls, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, in Cottingley, West Yorkshire, supposedly showed fairies at the bottom of their garden. Conan Doyle believed the photographs were real and wrote a famous article about the incident which appeared in the November 1920 issue of the Strand Magazine. In The Case of the Missing Lady, Tommy refers to a concert at the Queen's Hall that he and Tuppence should attend. This hall, built in 1893, was destroyed in an air raid in World War II. It is most famous for being the first home of the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts. In Blindman's Buff and The Man Who Was No. 16, the Blitz Hotel is a play on words on London's Ritz Hotel. Christie uses the same location (and the same name for it) in the 1925 novel The Secret of Chimneys. In The House of Lurking Death, Lois Hargreaves admits to a habit of doodling a design of three intertwined fish. This design was used on the set of the collected works of Christie begun by William Collins in 1967 (but never completed) and this was approved by Christie in the spring of 1966 in discussions with the publishers. Although it has been stated by some that the doodle was a habit of Christie herself, the design was apparently spotted by her in the bazaars of Baalbek on a visit in the 1930s. The same design was used in the title sequence of the television series Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime (see below) and Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (1980).

The Case of the Missing Lady (1950) from Partners in Crime aired as the twelfth episode in the twenty six episode anthology series The Nash Airflyte Theater on Thursday, 7 December 1950 (possibly under the title of The Disappearance of Mrs Gordan). The 30 minute live transmission on CBS was at 10:30 pm from New York City. There are differing accounts of who starred in the adaptation. Peter Haining states that the stars were Barbara Bel Geddes as Tuppence and Lee Bowman as Tommy but other sources state that the stars were Ronald Reagan and Cloris Leachman The adaptation was written and directed by Marc Daniels. In 1983, a ten episode television adaptation called Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime was made by London Weekend Television with James Warwick as Tommy, Francesca Annis as Tuppence, and Reece Dinsdale as Albert. It was first broadcast in the UK between 16 October 1983 and 14 January 1984. (Note: The 2015 BBC television series Partners in Crime is actually not an adaptation of this short story collection, instead being an adaptation of two Christie novels: The Secret Adversary and N or M?. Its title is nevertheless an obvious homage to this collection, as the two novels in question also feature the same detectives Tommy and Tuppence.)

Partners in Crime was adapted as a 13 part radio serial broadcast on the BBC's London, Midland and Scottish Home Service from Monday, 13 April to Monday, 13 July 1953. The half hour episodes starred Richard Attenborough as Tommy and Sheila Sim as Tuppence, taking advantage of the actors' then current starring roles in The Mousetrap. Oscar Quitak appeared in all episodes as Albert. Aside from a 1948 adaptation of Ten Little Niggers, this was the first adaptation of a Christie book for radio in the UK.

All of the stories in Partners in Crime first appeared in magazines between 1923 and 1928, principally The Sketch magazine. For publication in book form, Christie rearranged the story order and changed the framing device of several of the chapters to make the flow of the book easier. The original order and publication details of the stories are as follows:
The First Wish: First published in issue 226 of The Grand Magazine in December 1923. This formed the basis for chapters 20 and 21 of the book – The Clergyman's Daughter / The Red House. The story was illustrated by Arthur Ferrier. Publicity: First published in issue 1652 of The Sketch on 24 September 1924. This formed the basis for chapters 1 and 2 of the book – A Fairy in the Flat / A Pot of Tea. This was the first in a sequence of twelve consecutive stories Christie wrote for The Sketch which appeared under the subtitle of Tommy and Tuppence. The Affair of the Pink Pearl: First published in issue 1653 of The Sketch on 1 October 1924. This formed the basis for chapters 3 and 4 of the book which uses the same chapter title. Finessing the King: First published in issue 1654 of The Sketch on 8 October 1924. This formed the basis for chapters 7 and 8 of the book – Finessing the King / The Gentleman Dressed in Newspaper. The Case of the Missing Lady: First published in issue 1655 of The Sketch on 15 October 1924. This formed the basis for chapter 9 of the book which uses the same chapter title. The Case of the Sinister Stranger: First published in issue 1656 of The Sketch on 22 October 1924. This formed the basis for chapters 5 and 6 of the book which use the slightly amended title of The Adventure of the Sinister Stranger. The Sunninghall Mystery: First published in issue 1657 of The Sketch on 29 October 1924. This formed the basis for chapters 15 and 16 of the book which use the slightly amended title of The Sunningdale Mystery. The House of Lurking Death: First published in issue 1658 of The Sketch on 5 November 1924. This formed the basis for chapters 17 and 18 of the book which use the same chapter title. The Matter of the Ambassador's Boots: First published in issue 1659 of The Sketch on 12 November 1924. This formed the basis for chapter 22 of the book which uses the shortened title of The Ambassador's Boots. The Affair of the Forged Notes: First published in issue 1660 of The Sketch on 19 November 1924. This formed the basis for chapters 13 and 14 of the book using the different title of The Crackler. Blindman's Buff: First published in issue 1661 of The Sketch on 26 November 1924. This formed the basis for chapter 10 of the book which uses the same chapter title. The Man in the Mist: First published in issue 1662 of The Sketch on 3 December 1924. This formed the basis for chapters 11 and 12 of the book which uses the same chapter title. The Man who was Number Sixteen: First published in issue 1663 of The Sketch on 10 December 1924. This formed the basis for chapter 23 of the book which uses the same chapter title and was also the final story Christie ever wrote for The Sketch. After a gap of four years a final story, The Unbreakable Alibi, appeared in Holly Leaves, the annual Christmas special of the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News in December 1928. This formed the basis for chapter 19 of the book.

As with most of Christie's short story collections, this book carried no dedication.