Towards Zero (St. Martin's Minotaur Mysteries)

Towards Zero (St. Martin's Minotaur Mysteries)
by Agatha Christie

Towards Zero (St. Martin's Minotaur Mysteries)
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Book Summary Information

Author: Agatha Christie
Edition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-12-09
ISBN: 0312981309
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Minotaur Books

Book Reviews of Towards Zero (St. Martin's Minotaur Mysteries)

Book Review: Carefully plotted, suspenseful, and a personal favorite.
Summary: 5 Stars

If Christie's Towards Zero (1944), published after The Moving Finger (1943) and before Death Comes As the End (1945), ranks as a personal favorite, it does so largely because it is one of Christie's novels which I return to repeatedly and find myself quickly engrossed, even though I know its ending.

Christie's power in Towards Zero is her ability to create a sinister air which permeates this novel written at the height of her career. While the absence of Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot may disappoint Christie fans, Superintendent Battle, whose role remains relatively marginal for much of the action of the novel, is the primary detective in the story. Like many of Christie's novels, Towards Zero is an English countryhouse murder mystery in which a limited number of suspects all congregate in one particular location.

Lady Tressilian's home, Gull's Point, overlooks a river which empties into Easterhead Bay. There, Lady Tressilian lives in relative peace with her companion, Mary Aldin, a sheepish young woman who acts as a secretary to Lady Tressilian. As the late summer approaches, Lady Tressilian finds herself hosting a series of guests, particularly her late husband's ward, Nevile Strange, accompanied by his new wife, Kay. Unfortunately, Nevile's first wife, Audrey, has also been invited. Christie, hardly prone to comedy comparable to a Noel Coward play, allows us to see the competing affections between these three characters. Why did Nevile leave his first wife whom everyone loved? Why does Kay find Audrey frightening? And why, after being rejected, does Audrey agree to come and visit Gull's Point at the latter end of the summer?

Eventually, we meet Mr. Treves, a kindly, well-meaning solicitor, whose considerable past experience allows him to speak with some authority on murderers and their victims. Unfortunately, after recounting an incident in which two children playing eventually lead to a fatality, an audience member finds Mr. Treves knowledge far too significant to ignore. Who among the guests at Gull's Point might be responsible for placing an "out of order" sign on an elevator so that an aging Mr. Treves would have to climb, much to his peril, flights of stairs? Christie's novel of suspense allows us briefly into the mind of the killer and while she never reveals anything that might give the end away, she manages to keep readers guessing until the last minute.

Summary of Towards Zero (St. Martin's Minotaur Mysteries)

"I like a good detective story, but they begin in the wrong place! They begin with the murder. But the murder is the end. The story begins long before that." So remarks esteemed criminologist Mr. Treves. Truer words have never been spoken, for a psychopathic killer has insinuated himself , with cunning manipulation, into a quiet village on the river Tern. But who is his intended victim? What are his unfathomable motives? And how and when will he reach the point of murder...the zero point? In the ingenious and noteworthy departure for Agatha Christie, it's the intricate workings of a pathological mind that becomes the stuff of startling mystery as group of friends at a seaside resort remain blithely unaware that their weekend will be the death of them all...

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