Pendergast! by Lawrence H. Larsen with Nancy J. Hulston

Description

The adventure that launched Tommy and Tuppence — Christie’s most delightful duo. The Secret Adversary (1922) — Christie’s second published novel — introduces Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley: two bright young things, broke after the Great War, who advertise themselves as adventurers for hire and tumble into a conspiracy involving missing treaties and a criminal mastermind.

Less a whodunit than a breathless thriller, this shows Christie trying her hand at the Buchan-style adventure — chases, disguises, secret societies — with her trademark wit and pace. Tommy and Tuppence’s banter crackles, and the plot races from London to the coast, never pausing for breath.

The first of five Tommy and Tuppence novels — read in order for the full arc of their marriage and adventures. For Christie fans, this is essential: the lighter, faster Christie, at the start of it all — where the Tommy and Tuppence legend begins.

Tom Pendergast built the most famous political machine in America — and Lawrence H. Larsen and Nancy J. Hulston tell his story in the first full-scale biography of Kansas City’s notorious boss.

Born in St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1872, Pendergast inherited his brother Jim’s saloon-based “Goat” faction and transformed it into a Democratic organization that controlled Kansas City for decades. His machine modernized the city — building roads, a new city hall, and public works — while trading jobs and favors for votes.

The biography’s most famous thread is Pendergast’s role in launching Harry Truman’s political career, from Jackson County judge to the U.S. Senate. The authors also chart the boss’s downfall: convicted of income tax evasion in 1939, he ended his days in disgrace.

Drawing on newly released prison records and personal documents, this balanced account — the first volume of the Missouri Biography Series — examines both the achievements and the corruption of a uniquely American figure. Pendergast! is essential reading for anyone fascinated by urban politics, the New Deal era, or the making of a president.