Towards Zero
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| Towards Zero | |
 Dust-jacket illustration of the US (true first) edition. See Publication history (below) for UK first edition jacket image. |
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| Author | Agatha Christie |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Dodd, Mead and Company |
| Publication date | June 1944 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 242 pp (first edition, hardcover) |
| ISBN | NA |
| Preceded by | The Moving Finger |
| Followed by | Absent in the Spring |
Towards Zero is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in June 1944[1] and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in July of the same year[2]. The US edition retailed at $2.00[1] and the UK edition at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6)[2]. The book is the last to feature her recurring character of Superintendent Battle.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
All events lead towards murder or towards zero.
What a failed suicide attempt, a set of petty thefts falsely pinned on a schoolgirl and a group of people meeting in one place have to do with each other needs to be determined.
Lady Tressilian invites her guests to her seaside house in Gulls Point and some guests start to quarrel with one another. Nevile Strange, the tennis star, invites both his old wife and his new one and these two ladies invite two more men creating more love triangles than could ever be hoped. Mr Treves tells tales of child murders and children murdering each other. Soon, old Mr Treves dies seemingly of a heart attack. Then Lady Tressilian is found murdered. Superintendent Battle solves this mystery along with his nephew Inspector James Leach.
[edit] Characters in "Towards Zero"
- Lady Camilla Tressilian, host of her seaside home
- Mary Aldin, Lady Camilla's companion
- Neville Strange, a handsome tennis player
- Kay Strange, his beautiful second wife
- Audrey Strange, Strange's beautiful first wife
- Edward (Ted) Latimer, Kay's friend
- Thomas Royde, Audrey's distant cousin
- Mr. Treves, Lady Camilla's solicitor
- Andrew MacWhirter, a man who tries to commit suicide
- Inspector James Leach, Battle's nephew
- Superintendent Battle, who solves the case with his nephew
[edit] Literary significance and reception
The review by Maurice Willson Disher in The Times Literary Supplement of July 22, 1944 was overwhelmingly positive: "Undiscriminating admirers of Miss Christie must surely miss the thrill of realizing when she is at her best. If this argument is sound then Towards Zero is for the critical. By virtue of masterly story-telling it makes the welfare of certain persons at a seaside town seem of more importance at the moment than anything else in the world. Mechanized brains may object that the murderer "perfects" his mystery by methods imposed upon fiction's police, but even when the maze is vaguely recognized the tale still grips. The characters become so much a part of the reader’s existence that he must know what their ultimate fate may be before he will rest satisfied. How alive they are is apparent when two men, both dogged, laconic, poker-faced, never seem alike. The wife and the ex-wife, who neither like nor dislike one another, also reveal creative power. As an exhibition of the modern brand of human nature, Towards Zero deserves higher praises than any that can be awarded to it as an excellent detective story."[3]
Maurice Richardson in the August 6, 1944 issue of The Observer wrote, "The new Agatha Christie has a deliciously prolonged and elaborate build-up, urbane and cosy like a good cigar and red leather slippers. Poirot is absent physically, but his influence guides the sensitive inspector past the whiles of the carefully planted house party, and with its tortuous double bluff this might well have been a Poirot case. How gratifying to see Agatha Christie keeping the flag of the old classic who-dun-it so triumphantly flying!"[4]
Robert Barnard: "Superb: intricately plotted and unusual. The murder comes later, and the real climax of the murderer's plot only at the end. The ingenuity excuses a degree of far-fetchedness. Highly effective story of the child and the bow-and-arrow (part II, chapter 6) and good characterization of the playboy-sportsman central character – very much of that era when one was expected to behave like a gentleman at Wimbledon."[5]
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
In 1956, Christie adapted the book into a play.
In 1995, a film company was going to turn Towards Zero into a film and included such issues as incest in the script. Rosalind Hicks, Agatha Christie's daughter and controller of her estate, reviewed the script and ordered that the name of the film be changed as well as the names of the characters. The film became Innocent Lies and was met with mediocre success.
The novel has been adapted as part of the third season of the new Miss Marple canon in 2006. In the film, it is Miss Marple (Geraldine McEwan) who solves the case, not Superintendent Battle. However, a new character, Superintendent Mallard, does appear in the film.
In 2007 a French version titled L'Heure Zéro was produced. [1]
[edit] Publication history
- 1944, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), June 1944, Hardcover, 242 pp
- 1944, Collins Crime Club (London), July 1944, Hardcover, 160 pp
- 1947, Pocket Books (New York), Paperback, 210 pp (Pocket number 398)
- 1948, Pan Books, Paperback, 195 pp (Pan number 54)
- 1959, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), Paperback, 192 pp
- 1972, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, Hardcover, 347 pp ISBN 0-85-456126-9
- 1973, Greenway edition of collected works (William Collins), Hardcover, 224 pp
- 1974, Greenway edition of collected works (Dodd Mead), Hardcover, 224 pp ISBN 0-00-231827-X
- 1977, Penguin Books, Paperback, 192 pp
The novel's first true publication was the serialisation in Collier's Weekly in three instalments from May 6 (Volume 113, Number 19) to May 20, 1944 (Volume 113, Number 21) under the title Come and Be Hanged! with illustrations by Charles La Salle.
[edit] References
- ^ a b American Tribute to Agatha Christie
- ^ a b Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier and Jamie Sturgeon. Collins Crime Club – A checklist of First Editions. Dragonby Press (Second Edition) March 1999 (Page 15)
- ^ The Times Literary Supplement July 22, 1944 (Page 353)
- ^ The Observer August 6, 1944 (Page 3)
- ^ Barnard, Robert. A Talent to Deceive – an appreciation of Agatha Christie - Revised edition (Page 208). Fontana Books, 1990. ISBN 0006374743
[edit] External links
- Towards Zero at the official Agatha Christie website
- Innocent Lies (1995) at the Internet Movie Database
- Marple: Towards Zero (2007) at the Internet Movie Database
- L'Heure zéro (2007) at the Internet Movie Database
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