Tommy and Tuppence

Thomas Beresford & Prudence Beresford (née Cowley)
Illustration by Arthur Ferrier of Tommy and Tuppence from the December 1923 issue of The Grand Magazine and the first-known image of the characters
First appearance	The Secret Adversary
Last appearance	Postern of Fate
Created by	Agatha Christie
Portrayed by	Richard Attenborough & Sheila Sim James Warwick & Francesca Annis André Dussollier & Catherine Frot Anthony Andrews & Greta Scacchi (radio) David Walliams & Jessica Raine
Information
Gender	Male/Female
Occupation	Secret agents/Private detectives
Family	Derek (son) Deborah (daughter) Betty (adopted daughter)
Nationality	British

Tommy and Tuppence are two fictional detectives, recurring characters in the work of Agatha Christie. Their full names are Thomas Beresford and his wife Prudence (née Cowley). The first time Tommy and Tuppence appeared in a Christie novel was in The Secret Adversary (1922). They started out their career as accidental blackmailers (in a search of adventure and money), but the detecting life soon proved more profitable and much more exciting.

Tommy and Tuppence appear together in four full-length novels and one collection of short stories The collection of short stories is Partners in Crime, (1929, each story referencing another writer's work); the four novels are The Secret Adversary (1922),N or M? (1941), By the Pricking of My Thumbs (1968); and Postern of Fate (1973).Postern of Fate was the last novel Christie ever wrote, although not the last to be published.

Tuppence appears as a charismatic, impulsive and intuitive person, while Tommy is less imaginative, and less likely to be diverted from the truth (as their first adversary sums him up "he is not clever, but it is hard to blind his eyes to the facts"), which is why they are shown to make a good team. It is in this first book The Secret Adversary that they meet up after the war, and come to realise that, although they have been friends for most of their lives, they have now fallen in love with each other.

Unlike many other recurring detective characters, including the better known Christie detectives, Tommy and Tuppence aged in time with the real world, being in their early twenties in The Secret Adversary and in their seventies in Postern of Fate. In their early appearances, they are portrayed as typical upper middle class "bright young things" of the 1920s, and the stories and settings have a more pronounced period-specific flavour than the stories featuring the better known Christie characters. As they age, they are revealed to have raised three children – twins Deborah and Derek and an adopted daughter, Betty. Throughout the series they employ a man named Albert, who first appears as a lift boy who helps them in The Secret Adversary. In Partners in Crime, Albert becomes their hapless assistant at a private detective agency; and subsequently, as a now married pub owner, renders vital assistance to the pair in N or M?.; by Postern of Fate he's their butler and has now been widowed. In Postern of Fate they also have a small dog named Hannibal.