When I heard that BritBox had a new Agatha Christie adaptation, I almost just pressed play assuming I had already read the book. I’ve read so many of Christie’s novels I can’t actually remember them all, or even all their titles. But then I heard it wasn’t a Poirot or Marple, which meant there was a chance I hadn’t actually got around to it. The detective here is Superintendent Battle, who unlike the more celebrated Christie sleuths, has no real defining trait. He’s just a very good, very British policeman who uses good policework to solve crimes.
Battle’s appearances tend to be in novels that are more about the crime than the solution, and that’s certainly the case here. The book establishes a “Zero Hour” conceit, proclaiming that the run-up to the murder is far more interesting than the aftermath. It’s a philosophy that’s well-meaning, but a bit odd as a highlight. Most of Christie’s novels, even in the Poirot and Marple series, feature a great deal of lead-up to the murder, so there’s nothing terribly special about that approach in Towards Zero.
Anyhoo, the plot here concerns a divorced tennis pro named Nevile Strange who has remarried a younger woman and, for some reason, wants his former and current wives to get along. It turns out that all three have been invited to spend a late-summer vacation at the estate where Nevile was raised, and despite the fact that no one seems particularly happy with the idea, all of them accept the invitation. There, they are joined by Nevile’s invalid aunt, her staff, and a few other family friends. The atmosphere is tense, as everyone seems to think the first wife is making a play to get her husband back.
When a body finally turns up, people are more surprised by the identity of the victim than they are the fact that a murder has happened at all. Luckily, Superintendent Battle is on his own summer holiday nearby, and thus able to assist in the investigation. It’s a typical “get everyone alone and ask them the same questions” routine, that really just serves to waste time until a rather giant coincidence can be introduced to explain how the murder was committed. The solution, it must be said, is far from Christie’s best, featuring only a mildly clever trick more likely to irritate than thrill.