By the Pricking of My Thumbs By the Pricking of My Thumbs By The Pricking of My Thumbs is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in November 1968 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at twenty-one shillings (21/-) and the US edition at $4.95. It features her detectives Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. Tommy and Tuppence were unusual in that they aged from novel to novel unlike Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, whose age remained more or less the same from Christie's
N or M? accident of typography that "nomina" came to be represented by "m". The novel is the first to feature the mature versions of her detectives Tommy and Tuppence, whose previous appearances had been in the adventure "The Secret Adversary" (1922) and the short story collection "Partners in Crime" (1929). After the outbreak of the Second World War and many years after they worked for British intelligence, middleaged Tommy and Tuppence Beresford feel useless and sidelined. Then Tommy is approached by a secret agent named Grant to go undercover once more. Grant tries to find German spies and fifth columnists but is