Towards Zero

One of the best Agatha Christie books: modern, innovative, people-focused and with a detective who feels like a real person

This is one of the best Agatha Christie books I've read. Although it was published in 1944, it feels very modern. The pace is brisk. The paths of multiple characters are followed simultaneously without any initial explanation of how the relate to each other or the murder. The characters, including the detective, feel like real people rather than cogs in the plot. The denouement requires a little bit of a stretch but Christie carries it off because, by then, the reader is less invested in the solution to a puzzle than they are in seeing justice done.

I rather liked the "Towards Zero" idea that a murder is not the show more start but the culmination of something and so, to be properly understood, the story of the murder needs to start not with the death but by following, over months, the paths of people who will collide with or contribute to the murder.

It was also nice to have an Agatha Christie murder where the protagonists were not filtered through the eyes and ego of a "great detective" but exist in their own right and are primarily interested in each other.

For once, the detective who will hunt down the killer is shown as a normal person: a man with a wife and a daughter. He's competent, confident and thoughtful without being arrogant or inappropriately curious about the lives of others. I wanted to applaud him for the way he dealt with his daughter's headmistress, and with his daughter when there is an incident at her school.

By the time we reached the first death, Superintendent Battle had barely made an appearance but the air was heavy with scents of both victims and predators.

What makes this such a good novel is Agatha Christie's ability to make all the characters relatable and memorable with very few words. I liked that she avoided making it clear who the author approves of. This added to the challenge of figuring out who did what with whom.

I think this is the first Christie novel that I've read where I felt some empathy with each of the characters, even the ones that were hard to like.

I listened to the audiobook version in which Hugh Fraser delivered his usual flawless performance, making a good novel even easier to enjoy. show less

Spurred on to revisit the novel after watching the recent BBC TV adaptation, I remembered why this is one of my favourites of Christie's novels. The angle is quite ingenious, and the level of planning and coldbloodedness the murderer shows is quite chilling.

As some of the other reviewers have mentioned, the focus really here is on the characters – the murder doesn't occur until roughly halfway through – who are more realistic and complex than in other Christie works. That being said, I think it is significant that the atmosphere of tension and menace that supposedly pervades the atmosphere at Gull's Point is usually spoken of by characters but not felt by the reader – telling, not showing – illustrating the shortcomings of show more Agatha Christie's skill. And of course there's the plot hole of the rope in the boxroom: how did Nevile Strange retrieve and return the rope when the dust in the room is undisturbed when Superintendent Battle inspects it? Page 198: 'From the dust on the floor nobody has been in here for at least six months.' And if he did plan everything so meticulously, wouldn't he have dried the puddles under the open window, which seems rather careless?

While I'm not a fan of the ending, which is far too soppy and doesn't ring true, the rest of the novel is still an excellent way to pass a few hours. show less

This novel does not feature Poirot or Marple, but Superintendent Battle appears several times. The five novels featuring him are indicated by LibraryThing as a series, but I have not read them in order and so far have only read two of them, this one and "Murder Is Easy".

Lady Tressilian, an invalid, but resolute lady, invites a group of guests to her seaside home. Among them are Nevile Strange, a rich tennis player, together with his wife. They decided to come at this time although Nevile's ex-wife is present as well. Soon tensions flare up and everybody is on edge, and then a murder occurs.

This mystery is the best Agatha Christie novel I have read for a long time. It has so many good things: Distinctive and interesting characters, a show more classic, yet unique and impressive setting, a good flow, but also new ideas, especially when it comes to the structure. Moreover, the style is more literary and I especially enjoyed reading the dialogues. I really thought that I was heading for a five star rating, but then the ending blew it all. The solution is so far-fetched that it is not satisfying, but I could live with that. However, the sudden romance and especially the rushed engagement and the following dialogue are disappointing after such a great novel. The last words of the prospective groom are downright creepy, and the whole relationship seems unhealthy to me. I really would have wished for something else for Audrey after all she went through.
Apart from this, it is a wonderful mystery and I will still remember it as one of my favorites. show less

Warning: this review contains spoilers.

****

This is a Superintendent Battle mystery and is consistently suspenseful. I enjoyed the character of Frederick Treves and wish he'd received more airtime. In the Marple-fied version of this story (the TV adaptation replaced Battle with Marple), Treves was played by Tom Baker, and he was an excellent choice. The ending was a bit weird though -- while the solution itself was acceptable, the way it was revealed was a bit rushed, and I'm not sure I buy Audrey's rushing off with Andrew. And that last line sounded more creepy than romantic. Still, this is a pretty good book.

I felt like reading this one as it was completely spoiled by 'Sherlock Holmes was Wrong' (Pierre Bayard). How could I turn down such an opportunity to study methods as I went along? Admittedly, it takes some of the fun out, but there was a different level of interest involved by knowing the solution in advance. This story has to rank right up there with the best of Christie that I have read, but it probably would not be very high in any poll of her fans. I could have done without the part at the very end with McWhirter (for anyone familiar,as I wouldn't dare spoil a mystery story by giving out details). Still, I really liked the clarity and depth of description without overdwelling on it. Maybe that has something to do with this show more particular book being dedicated to Robert Graves, who is a master of the English language. show less

After my last read, I needed a relaxing and delightfully escape into one of my favorite genres and what better choice could I have than an Agatha Christie mystery. Towards Zero is a “manor mystery”, where the crime is committed while there is a gathering of suspects at a country house, in this case Gull House which is perched high above the ocean upon seaside cliffs.

When the owner of the mansion, an eccentric old lady in her eighties, is found murdered in her bed, there are any number of suspects to be found among the guests and the servants and although this book does not benefit from the “little grey cells” of Poirot, or the sharp observations Miss Marple, it does have Superintendent Battle to put the clues together and to show more unravel the twists and turns that the story takes. Battle is perhaps not one of Christie’s more colorful sleuths, but his solid steady ways are reassuring as he oversees the investigation.

I found this to be a very entertaining “vintage” mystery. Over the course of the book, I found myself suspecting one person or another and yet was still surprised at the final outcome. Although the ending seemed a little rushed and I didn’t totally embrace the romance angle, Towards Zero was exactly the read I needed at this time. show less

I read this Christie novel after seeing the recent BBC TV adaptation. I prefer now not to have read the novel first before seeing such adaptations otherwise I spend the whole time comparing the two and observing critically where they diverge. Watching the programme first, I can appreciate it more as a piece of drama in its own right. Ironically, in this case, there were relatively few significant differences between the two. The convoluted marital history of Nevile Strange provides its share of surprises and shocks and rather bizarre twists and turns. Kay Strange, the second wife, seems a much less significant figure, it's all about the relationship between Nevile and his first wife Audrey. The murder plot seems even more contrived and show more downright implausible than usual, but this is a testimony to the byzantine imagination of Mrs Christie. I enjoyed the story, and I particularly enjoyed the passages where the detectives leading the investigation speculate on how the great Belgian Hercule Poirot would have approached this situation. Finally, I guess I was a little disappointed that the tennis connection was minor and only incidental to the plot. show less