Ordeal by Innocence: ordeal by disappointment

Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie

published 1958

 

 

Ordeal by Innocence is always described as one of Agatha Christie’s own favourites among her works, and with a theme that she liked very much: how murder affects those left behind. Another favourite theme features too: motherhood, adoption and maternal love gone wrong.

I have never put it high up on my own list of Christies, and have never blogged on it, so decided I would try to reread it with no preconceptions, and see what I made of it.

And I’m sorry to say, the answer is: Not much, I had all kinds of complaints about it. It was worse than I remembered, quite a dismal experience.

It’s a good setup: Dr Arthur Calgary returns from a two-year Antarctic expedition and finds that he was a key witness in a  murder case. He could have given an alibi to young Jacko Argyll, who was accused of killing his mother. Jacko was found guilty, and died soon after in jail. Now that Dr Calgary has come back and realized what happened, he goes to visit the family in their rather awful house, ready to give them the good news of Jacko’s innocence.

So my first big problem is that Dr Calgary is an idiot. He is portrayed as some kind of brilliant outsider, coming in to sort everyone out and find out the truth. But he cannot see that if he proves Jacko innocent, then someone else must be guilty. He seems quite exceptionally stupid, and takes an awfully long time to realize what he is bringing with his news. He is terribly surprised that his revelations are not entirely welcome. His being clever enough to solve the crime seems very unlikely in the circs. At one point he has the nerve to say ‘he wondered if she still failed to understand the full implications of his story.’ Well considering how long it took him…

Next problem is the actual murder plan.

[My usual SPOILER WARNING applies – I won’t name anyone, and consider that my comments would only be a spoiler if you were  halfway through the book or about to start it, in which case come back when you have finished it]

The motive seems to be completely inadequate and not properly explained at all. A financial aspect is thrown in – ‘I expect X and Y’ without any proper backup.

And then there is the question of the alibi. Someone sets out to establish it as a sure thing  -  but apart from its being a particularly chancy one (suppose no-one had come along?) the person involved apparently completely fails to initiate the most basic discussions.

In the circumstances you would make sure you knew exactly who you were dealing with, and there were life details available which would absolutely ensure that the person could be tracked down. Yes, yes all that about the road accident was unfortunate – but it didn’t change anything for the other person involved, who surely would have had plenty to suggest in their defence.

Next thing – nothing happens in the book. Dr Calgary turns up with his surprising news. Everybody has long tortured conversations and thinking sessions. Right at the end there is a flurry of violence and almost no-one is left to accuse.

And finally, I did not find the central relationship  behind the crime convincing. Christie has quite a line in hidden relationships, eg Death on the Nile,  Evil Under the Sun, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and usually you can nod your head at the end and say ‘Yes, fair play Agatha, I’ll take that.’ But this one seemed very hard to imagine. Simply claiming that Person A was of a type to appeal to Person B didn’t make sense.

And it was never made clear – was this a crime that was planned only a few minutes before it happened? Because that seems to be the only option, and makes it all even less convincing – in terms of persuasion, co-option or coercion. The mind boggles at the thought of what exactly Person A and Person B said to each other.

Wholly nonsensical.

And  if you think any of that is over-controversial -  you may need to avert your eyes NOW.

I didn’t really care that the story was dramatically altered for the recent BBC adaptation: maybe Sarah Phelps should have called it something else, but I thought the story was greatly improved in fact, with a much more memorable and bone-chilling explanation, and incredible final scenes. There’s a gif of a few seconds from this programme – you can see it here too – I’d rather watch that on a loop than read the book again.

via GIPHY

Let’s face it - I may be drummed out of the Golden Age detective cabal for saying all this. (Please let me carry on being part of the Secret Santa)

You can find a much more sympathetic view of the book over at Kate Jackson’s Cross-Examining Crime blog, and she does make very good points about the theme of doing good and it going wrong.

In addition, there are virtually no clothes mentioned in the book at all. Honestly. A dark dress, and then just warm coats for the women… ‘a fur-collared tweed coat’ and ‘a heavy tweed coat with a dark green skirt and sweater underneath’.

Black and white pictures from Clover.