Confession time: this is the first Agatha Christie novel I have read. I know, I’m surprised too. When thinking about where I wanted to jump in one of her standalone novels felt like the right choice, and since I had watched the adaptation of Why Didn’t They Ask Evans and remembered the plot I figured going into one without any preconceived notions was probably for the best. As it was the end of October one with spooky vibes (a group of strangers invited to an isolated island off the Devon coast where they are murdered one by one for their past crimes) felt like a great choice and when you throw in an audiobook performed by Dan Stevens, I was SOLD.
Admittedly, I struggled to keep details straight reading in audio form even while I was pulled in by the narrative. Nothing against Dan Stevens’ narration – that’s great per usual – but I kept getting some character details scrambled and with the inability to flip back a few pages and clarify I ended up referring to the Wikipedia article to help myself keep track while also not scrolling too far and giving it all away. Because here’s the thing, this 85-year-old book is incredibly tightly plotted to the point where a postscript is required to fully explicate what you’ve just read, but the clues are there if you are paying sufficient attention.
I also went ahead and treated myself to the 2015 BBC adaptation of the book starring a truly awesome ensemble cast of Douglas Booth, Charles Dance, Maeve Dermody, Burn Gorman, Anna Maxwell Martin, Sam Neill, Miranda Richardson, Toby Stephens, Noah Taylor, and Aidan Turner. It has some changes from the original, but I thought it captured the mood and tension very well (I borrowed it from Hoopla).
Bingo Square: Games. The killer is playing a game, and Christie is a playing a game with the reader, can we figure out how it was done and why it is happening?
Bingo 6: Disco, Cult, Games, Fiasco, And also…
Bingo 7: Celestial, Games, Dreams, Smash, Pride
