Towards Zero by Agatha Christie

published 1944







This is going to be the next book for Jim Noy’s Spoiler Warning podcast over at the  Invisible Event - we are zipping through Agatha Christie books at a rate of, oh, several a year – see the previous ones here.

I got in early with the re-read, and I like this book  even more this time around, and am really looking forward to discussing it, and hope as many people as possible will read it too so they can listen to Jim, Brad Friedman and me as we spoiler it. At length – no detail will remain undiscussed. But for now, no spoilers.

The book has a great structure – the conceit is that a murder starts a long way before it happens, so the book follows various people as they move towards zero hour. It’s one of those books that you absolutely remember the details of the solution, you wouldn’t be in any doubt what’s going on at a re-reading, but that just enables you to be completely lost in admiration of the plot and the 90% of it which is, frankly, close to perfect. The only reservation is the story of the child and the bow and arrow, which makes no sense at all (they all spent their sodding childhoods together, all of them, how could any of them be the child in the story?) There is a minor reservation also that no-one in their right minds would actually plan a murder like that, with all the things that could (would) have gone wrong, but as I always say, if you start on that road, most crime novels would rule themselves out.

Christie is very good at what you might call 'necessary exposition' – unlike many of her contemporaries – characters convincingly tell each other what they need to know, but not at excessive length, and tell us at the same time. Here Mary picks up Thomas from the station which gives her the chance to explain to him and us what is going on.

‘Really, Thomas, your visit just now is going to be a godsend. Things are rather difficult—and a stranger—or partial stranger is just what is needed.’

 ‘What’s the trouble?’…

‘Audrey is here… And Nevile and his wife also’

 – and so on.

Nevile’s wife Kay has a friend, Ted: ‘she had known him since she was 15. They had oiled and sunned themselves at Juan les Pins, had danced together and played tennis together. They had been not only friends but allies’ – which is strangely reminiscent of the legendary popsong of the 1960s, Peter Sarstedt’s ‘Where do you to my Lovely?’ (A comparison that I believe I am the first to make)


There is a character called Angus McWhirter, which is the name of the oddjob man in the John Dickson Carr book The Problem of the Wire Cage, published five years earlier, in 1939, and also featuring tennis.

There is one aspect that I am very much looking forward to discussing, but don’t want to spoiler here: a way in which Agatha Christie was way ahead of her time. (it’s to do with the situation of one of the women characters.)

So for now we will concentrate on the clothes in the book…

 

 


Kay Strange, dressed in shorts and a canary-coloured woolly, was leaning forward watching the tennis players. It was the semi-final of the St Loo tournament men’s singles, and Nevile was playing young Merrick, who was regarded as the coming star in the tennis firmament.

The woman in the picture may have forgotten her woolly (she is in Australia, warmer probably) but very much has an air of Kay in the book. There is a continual contrast drawn between two women – Kay is vibrant and striking while Audrey is paler and silvery and fades away.

‘He was struck suddenly with [Kay’s] intense and passionate beauty. A beauty of vivid colouring , of abundant and triumphant vitality. He looked across from her to Audrey, pale and mothlike in a silvery grey dress…’Red Rose and Snow White’”

Audrey wore a white swimsuit and looked like a delicate ivory figure… Kay lay on her face exposing her bronzed limbs and back to the sun. Ted from beyond her murmured: ‘The sun here isn’t a real sun.’

(It also says Mary had not bathed: that sounds rather personal but means that she did not go swimming, not that she didn’t bother washing)

Kay was dressed in a tweed skirt and a purple sweater – Audrey was wearing a pale grey flannel coat and skirt. In it she looked so pale and ghostlike that Battle was reminded of Kay’s words, ‘a grey ghost creeping about the house’.




I decided to try to find pictures of two women which might give an air of Kay and Audrey – usually two women in a fashion pic are quite similar but I was quite pleased with all these, which are from 1951 (it was obviously a thing… ) The top one in particular gives the feel of the relationship between the two women. The book is from 1944, but not at all wartime-based, so could be set in the 1930s. But as it was vague – and my friend Johan claims that at least one Christie book is set in the future from when it was written – I was lavish in choosing 50s clothes..

 

I’m always intrigued by a discussion of mourning amongst the survivors and in this case there is a thrilling moment where the great rivals Kay and Audrey – who barely speak, and only then for Kay to insult Audrey  or accuse her of all kinds, including husband-stealing and murder –  go together ‘into Saltington in the car to get some black clothes’ for the funeral. Priorities.



 

Tennis picture shows actress Billy Worth dressed for tennis, 1937, from the State Library of New South Wales -  yes, my main man Sam Hood.

Other pictures from the Clover Vintage Tumbler.

Comments

  1. I think this is a great choice for you three, Moira. As you say, the plot and the exposition are really well done. And I very much look forward to what you have to say about Christie's treatment of women. I've always thought she was ahead of her time, too. And interestingly, this is one of her books that doesn't always get the attention that some of the others do.

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    1. Yes, hard agree Margot with all you say. It's a very interesting one, and may continue to fly under the radar, but will always have its discerning fans (ie you and me... )

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  2. Given the utter sensationalism of that childhood crime, it really IS impossible to believe that nobody listening to Mr. Treve's story wouldn't have jumped up and said, "But XXXX, that was YOU!!!" And you have to admit that the final conversation between Angus and Audrey does not reveal an enlightened treatment of women. Other than that, the book is just about perfect!

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    1. Exactly, 90% or thereabouts. Are we going to agree about EVERYTHING in the podcast?

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  3. Hello, Moira! A few years ago, I started reading Agatha Christie in order of publication and then promptly forgot about the challenge I'd set for myself. Of course, I read the odd Christie now and then. But your post inspires me to do so again.

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    1. Lovely to see you Prashant! I almost envy you that you have new Christies to read. I am sure you will like this one.

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  4. This is one of Christie's books that I have not read, but you have certainly inspired me to do so. Maybe sometime this year, but not in the next few months.

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    1. Look forward to seeing your review when you get round to it Tracy

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  5. One of my favourites - so clever - and perhaps not QUITE as implausible as some GA murder techniques given the chilling glimpse early on into the murderer's diseased mind. Chrissie (not really anonymous but don't know how to stop being so.

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    1. Thanks Chrissie. It stands up well to re-reading, and I will continue to do so every few years, as I do with all my favourite Christies.

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  6. Christie's normal negative view of suicide, expect for murderers when she is all for it, is really prominent in this one. Not one of my favorites, did not find it very enjoyable. But I am looking forward to your podcast!

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    1. And did you have any thoughts on when it is set, given that you get a mention in this regard 😉?

      Re-visiting James Bond recently, I was again mystified by the attitude to suicide in You Only Live Twice - the book makes no sense in terms of the suicide garden ('Disneyland of Death') because the attitude to suicide varies so much.
      I will have to think about Christie and suicide. It was certainly a convenient way of getting rid of murderers in the Golden Age,

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    2. No, I paid no attention to setting. Clearly not during WW2, but I don't remember any references to it being a thing of the past.

      Destination Unknown has a similar start with a character failing to committ suicide and a moralistic lecture on how we don't have the right to throw our life away. But Poirot often lets murderers committ suicide rather than face hanging.

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    3. I think it's Robert Barnard who says it's just as well so many of them commit suicide, because actual courtroom evidence was sadly lacking in some cases.
      I don't think consistency was a huge worry to her, she said what she needed for a particular moment. She also has characters bang on about the importance of heredity, whether madness or a tendency to murder, but I believe she just wanted that for plot purposes. eg why Carla sets the investigation in motion in 5 Little Pigs. Obviously I have no idea what Christie thought, but it just comes over to me as a handy hook from time to time.

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