This early Agatha Christie spy novel is interesting mainly as a stop along the way to better things. She has populated it with a huge cast of mostly underdeveloped characters who move around the globe in ways that ultimately contribute to global politics. It is eight years after the end of WWI, Eastern Europe is still seething with intrigue and unrest, and Anthony Cade is recruited by a friend to take a mysterious manuscript, written by a Herzoslovakian count Styltpitch, by hand from South Africa to London for publication. By the time Case makes it to England he discover that on this manuscript turn numerous geopolitical developments: oil contracts sought after by England and the U.S.; the shape of the Herzoslovakian government, whether royalist or democratic; and the theft of the Kohinoor diamond which could finance which ever government emerges supreme. “King Victor,” an Arsene Lupin-like jewel thief is featured, as well as detectives from the American Pinkertons, the French Surete, and Scotland Yard of course. And there are several intrepid women who have their own problems, too. It’s a complicated romp, with the usual retrograde British colonialisms (“dagos” abound), and most interestingly Christie seems to come down on the side of liberated women *and* monarchy. When all the murders and thefts are resolved, the two protagonists (no spoilers here) rejoice at their future in Herzoslovakia: “We’ll have a lot of fun...teaching the brigands not to be brigands, and the assassins not to assassinate, and generally improving the moral tone of the country” (310).