Beth E's Reviews > Postern of Fate

I love this book. Tommy and Tuppence may be doddering old people, but they are still as cute as ever, and they still have "it"- they can still solve a mystery with the weirdest clues you ever saw.

I love how Tuppence wants to re-read all the books of her childhood, and this leads her to a mystery. She's my kind of woman. I also appreciate that despite their flaws and their age, Tommy and Tuppence continue to be great together and to possess marvelous skills.

What confuses me terribly though, is the timeline. They are investigating a murder that happened around WW1, which was a long time ago and clues are hard to come by. Fair enough. What really confuses me is that the age of this mystery is continually stressed, and our detectives are even led to visit an old people's home for clues. The elderly people refer to this event as something that happened before their time. This does not make any sense. Tommy and Tuppence were alive in WW1; Tommy was a soldier and Tuppence was a nurse. Therefore the timeline is completely whacked when they interview people older than they are and the older people say that this mystery took place before their time. And Tuppence looks at photographs of the people in the mystery and makes fun of the style of their clothing as though it happened before her birth. This mystery should be contemporary with Tommy and Tuppence's youth! It really, really makes no sense.

I still enjoy this book, I re-read it, and I own it. But the timeline is nonsensical.