Agatha Christie 100 - Endless Night

This non-series title, as opposed to most other Christie non-series novels, is a psychological domestic thriller.

Young Michael Rogers, a restless spirit, becomes enamoured with a specific location called Gipsy's Acre and sees himself living there in a specially built house. He runs into Ellie Guteman, who is also quite taken with the place, and they strike up a relationship. They soon end up married with a house commissioned by a famous architect. But in the neighbourhood lives a Mrs. Lee, a village gypsy who warns them that something evil will happen if they keep on living there...

For such a late career work, this features some of Christie's strongest writing. The narration by Michael feels genuine and the arc of the novel fits perfectly with his characteristics. I've seen that it was one of Christie's own favourites, and I can understand that. It's cleverly done, and the narrative trick is quite devastating.

And yet... I thoroughly dislike this one. I really, REALLY don't like it. This is, as you'll understand, not due to the quality of the writing, because I firmly agree that it's very well done in this respect. But it belongs to a subgenre that I detest - the psychological domestic thriller - and also, I'm not overly fond of having characters with mental problems as villains. I am certain that the effect that it has on me is the one that is intended by the author, but I am not interested in being thus affected.

So, if you feel differently and don't have any issues with this sub-genre, take my ranking with a healthy helping of salt, because to me this is a 4 out of 100.

1968

1987

1988

2014

Oändlig natt is a literal translation of Endless Night, so not much to discuss there. Four editions of this novel from a late stage in Christie's career isn't too bad, all things said. Particularly the fact that there has been a recent edition lends some credence to the commonly held opinion that this is Christie's last halfway decent novel (though personally I disagree, as I rated her previous novel highly).

The late 60s cover is a bit too murky and yet too humorous for my liking. If there is one Christie novel that shouldn't be treated to a cover with a humoristic tinge, I think it's this one.

The paperback edition from 1987 is fairly weird. All those celestial objects really make no sense to me. One year later saw a book club edition, and while the image is fairly appropriate, the typeface is horrible. Not only is it much too large, it doesn't contrast particularly well with the image.

The cover of the latest edition is a bit nondescript, but still probably the best one here. A faint outline of a skull and the flying crow(?) isn't the most original image ever, but at least it's not inappropriate.