Evil Under the Sun (1941) by Agatha Christie

This is my latest Christie re-read. Due to the film and TV adaptations of this story, it is another of the “big” Christies. I was surprised I had not reviewed this one yet, although I have mentioned it in previous thematic posts.

SPOILER WARNING – It is best to have read the book (or know the solution to it) before reading the rest of this post.

Synopsis

‘The moment Arlena [Marshall; nee] Stuart steps through the door, every eye in the resort is on her. She is beautiful. She is famous. And in less than 72 hours she will be dead. On this luxury retreat, cut off from the outside world, everyone is a suspect. The wandering husband. The jealous wife. The bitter stepdaughter. They all had a reason to kill Arlena Stuart. But who hated her enough to do it?’

Overall Thoughts

Often Christie opens her stories with characters mid conversation, or she has a series of small vignettes which introduce you to all the main characters. Interestingly though in Evil Under the Sun she begins more unusually (although it is not unheard of for her) with the history of her geographical setting, e.g., the fictional Smugglers Island near Leathercombe Bay off the south-east coast of England. It is said to have been based on Burgh Island, near Devon. This introduction also explains how the Jolly Roger Hotel came into being. This setting arguably ties into the later drugs trafficking subplot, but I felt the exposition also tapped into the changing times when it came to holidaymaking in the UK. The 1930s in particular saw a shift in this area due to the 1938 Holiday with Pay Act.

Unlike some of the later Poirot mysteries, our favourite Belgian sleuth is introduced very early in this novel, and he has much to say about sunbathers: ‘Regard them there, lying out in rows. What are they? They are not men and women. There is nothing personal about them. They are just – bodies!’ Furthermore, this lack of individuality when it comes to sunbathing is captured in an almost modernist comment when he opines that: ‘today everything is standardised’. This echoes some modernist literary anxieties surrounding the rise of the machine and the fear of humanity becoming mechanised and losing personal differences. Of course, Poirot’s background is very much rooted in policework, so this is shortly followed by the unflattering comment that the bodies on the beach remind him ‘very much of the Morgue in Paris […] Bodies – arranged on slabs – like butcher’s meat!’ This scene might seem like Poirot is having a rambling rant, in the “he is so out of touch with the modern generation” vein, but in fact Christie is doing something far more important and interesting here. It is one of, if not our first significant clue concerning the murder, which has yet to happen. Poirot brings to our attention how one live sunbather looks very much like another and as we will go on to see the idea can be stretched to suggest how a live sunbather can look very similar to a dead one…

Hercule Poirot also voices another interesting idea in the initial conversation he is a part of on the hotel terrace (an effective scene for spreading many red herrings and for introducing us to key ideas and characters). He espouses the notion that a holiday resort provides good camouflage for a murderer, better than if you tried to corner your victim in their workplace or home. Poirot says in these latter settings that you have to ‘account for yourself’, but that you don’t have to when on holiday. This was an intriguing idea as I wasn’t sure how true it was. I wonder if it depends on the sort of murder you are planning to commit, as if you go on holiday to murder your victim and you are the only person in the area with a connection to the victim, then you are liable to come under heavy scrutiny by the police. It is different in the case Christie presents us here though as Arlena’s death is not short of a suspect or two.

One of the biggest things I noticed about this story when re-reading it was the red herrings. I don’t think it is too outrageous for me to suggest that Christie delivers one of her most intense, if not her most intense barrage of red herrings in this story, particularly in the opening chapter or two. What makes this such a comprehensive bombardment is how these red herrings cover a wide range of aspects of the murder plot, from relationship dynamics to intricate parts of the murder modus operandi. I made a note of some of these different red herrings, which I have put below. This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but it shows how red herrings come from every angle in this story. You might not fall for some of them, but can you avoid them all?

• A matter of pages into the story and we are told about Christine Redfern’s fear of heights, with someone even saying: ‘she’d better not go down the ladder to Pixy cove […]’. Naturally the murder takes place at Pixy Cove, and this is one of the reasons why Christine is wrongfully exonerated from being a part of the crime.
• Following on the heels of this red herring, Christine says: ‘I wish I could sun-bathe!’ as unfortunately according to her, her skin blisters and goes very red. Again, this predisposes us to think that the body on the beach at the crime scene cannot be Christine Redfern’s as the skin is tanned. Christine can also wear loose and large clothing as those around her will think she is trying to keep the sun off her skin whilst keeping cool, yet in reality on the morning of the murder she is concealing a swimsuit designed to make Emily Brewster think she is the dead body of Arlena on the beach.
• Arlena Marshall’s entrance into the story, is another form of red herring, as Christie sets her up as a stereotypically negative maneater and homewrecker. Yet whilst Arlena is no saint, her entrance is engineered to give us misconceptions about the case to come. We are set up to think Arlena will be the source of “evil”, the one who brings trouble, but the solution shows otherwise.
• Captain Marshall interviews badly with the police and we are shown how another character, Rosamund Darnley is keen on him. But was she keen enough to rid him of his wife? Or is Christie doing another Death on the Nile type murder plot? After all she does lie to the police in order to bolster up Kenneth’s alibi, a lie that Poirot sees through.
• One of the reasons why the strangulation is said to be a man’s job, is due to the size of hands judged to have made the marks on the victim’s neck. However, Christie performs a double bluff of sorts, as whilst the killer was a man, Poirot notices the hands of the female characters which are large. This has the potential to make you think that maybe a woman did the deed after all. Also, again Christine’s hands are said to be small, so this once more makes her seem unlikely to have been involved in the crime.

Suffice to say I think Evil Under the Sun is a masterclass in how to use red herrings effectively and subtly in a mystery. Nevertheless, following on from Arlena’s debut appearance into the plot, we see Hercule having a chat with Rosamund Darnley, about how appearances are deceptive. So, you can’t say Christie doesn’t warn us about taking things at face value! To give further credit to Christie I would say early on she creates an array of possible suspects and varying motives, although some are more likely than others (no one can say they are really buying the possibility of the reverend having turned homicidal!)

Re-reading this mystery, also showed me how many little incidents could have prevented or at least delayed Arlena’s murder. This is not something I really picked up on during my first read of it. For example, if Rosamund had accepted Linda’s invitation to join her and Christine Redfern, I don’t know if Christine would have risked it, as her ability to fudge timings would have been harder if the observant and intelligent Rosamund was around. Moreover, if Poirot had told the truth when Captain Marshall asked him where his wife was, a question he asked in front of Patrick Redfern, then again, I don’t think Patrick would have chanced committing the murder that morning. Consequently, I was quite surprised by the retrospective comment near the beginning of the book which says:

‘And Hercule Poirot, with a sigh, said as he had said once before in Egypt, that if a person is determined to commit murder it is not easy to prevent them. He does not blame himself for what happened. It was, according to him, inevitable.’

Looking at the examples mentioned above, I am not so sure how inevitable the crime was, though maybe if they had not killed Arlena that morning, Patrick and Christine may have been able to re-deploy the plan on a later day. There are a lot of what ifs with this murder plot, and I have to say the criminals were very lucky in how everything very much went their way, when it came to the execution of their crime. This did not bother me particularly, but the same cannot be said for the reviewer writing for The Criminal Record in The Saturday Review in 1941. They wrote that the mystery was ‘worked out with characteristic cunning and subtle deception. Poirot scintillates, but crime itself may take a heap of believing.’

Once the murderer has struck and the police investigation is underway, of which Poirot is a naturally invited to take a part, Poirot exclaims to Captain Marshall during his first interview that:

‘There is no such thing as a plain fact of murder. Murder springs, nine times out of ten, out of the character and circumstances of the murdered person. Because the victim was the kind of person he or she was, therefore was he or she murdered! until we can understand fully and completely exactly what kind of a person Arlena Marshall was, we shall not be able to see clearly exactly what kind of person who murdered her. from that springs the necessity of our questions.’

Often this can sound like convenient psychobabble, especially in mysteries which have few tangible clues to go on, but in this mystery, it is very much a pertinent point. A key part of the solution is seeing Arlena’s vulnerability and realising how it is she who is easily deceived by men, rather than the other way round. Noticing this about her character is an important part in seeing which men around her would be most likely to dupe her. This puts Patrick in Poirot’s sights, and it is then just the tricky part of how he did the crime, which has to follow.

The Christie title I was reminded of the most when re-reading this book was unsurprisingly, Death on the Nile (1937). There are a number of parallels. The foremost one is the love triangle which appears in both, a triangle which the reader is manipulated into looking at the wrong way, misreading what is really going on. Incidentally, the variation she produces with this trope is pleasing. Other parallels include the female accomplice being more intelligent than the male killer, the male killer being used to draw in the female victim for the purposes of gaining her money and the male killer in each case rising to the bait Poirot throws out at them to goad them into implicating themselves.

Whilst I could remember most of the plot events in this story, one that I had forgotten was the picnic Poirot suggests many of the hotel guests go on. This takes place within 20 to 30 pages of the ending and for me I found it wonderfully left field, with the reader having to try and spot what Poirot is hoping to get out of the activity. It is incongruous with the idea of a murder investigation, and it contrasts sharply with the scene the picnickers arrive back to, the attempted suicide of Linda. Yet Poirot charts a course through the calm waters as well as the choppy ones and masterfully turns on the real culprits when they least expect it.

I think this is one of Christie’s best put together puzzles with the shoal of red herrings she strews in our path. However, I am being picky in wondering whether the reader is able to work out all of the mechanics of the crime though. Arguably some imaginative sleuthing is required, as you need to alight upon the idea that Christine Redfern could have altered Linda’s watch for instance and that Christine could have been able to take Arlena’s place when Patrick and Emily first get to Pixy Cove. In addition, we don’t have the photographic evidence that Poirot receives near the end of the case, which proves that Christine and Patrick had committed another murder under different aliases. We only hear about this in the solution. However, its inclusion does help to make a more convincing case for Poirot, as it means he doesn’t have to rely only on bluffing and provoking the guilty party. What do you think? Did the story need more clues and less red herrings?

One thing I liked less about the denouement this time round was the uniting of Rosamund and Kenneth. I did not mind them coming together, but I thought it was disappointing that Kenneth insisted on her giving up her successful business before marrying him, saying that she was ‘no use to’ him otherwise. This seems a bit rich, considering that Kenneth’s own business is not doing well at the time of the story. It’s not a big thing but it did sour the ending a little for me.

Rating: 4.5/5