“Gipsy’s Acre was a truly beautiful upland site with views out to sea – and in Michael Rogers it stirred a child-like fantasy. There, amongst the dark fir trees, he planned to build a house, find a girl and live happily ever after. Yet, as he left the village, a shadow of menace hung over the land. For this was the place where accidents happened. Perhaps Michael should have heeded the locals’ warnings: ‘There’s no luck for them as meddles with Gipsy’s Acre.’ Michael Rogers is a man who is about to learn the true meaning of the old saying ‘In my end is my beginning.’”
Endless Night is an interesting fun, briskly paced thriller, and despite being well into her late 70s at the time, Christie captures the voice of a young twenty-something narrator (and his many layers). Narrated by Rogers (who becomes more amoral and deeply layered as the tale progresses), the book works primarily, I think, because it stays focused on the two main characters. This is not her traditional cozy mystery/whodunit she was well known for, so I can see why the reviews in 1967 questioned her departure from the norm.
Perhaps, also, because this tale is really focused on two main characters, they are given more depth and dimension than her typical crime thrillers with multiple folks. While Fenella (Ellie) Guteman comes across as typical character Christie does create (the super rich heiress) she is still somewhat three dimensional Still, any hardcore Christie fan will note there are some patented aspects she’s added, including the sometimes Gothic atmosphere that ran through her earlier work, and the cursed land (which adds a bit of potential superstitions to the book). I have to admit that despite some of those aspects, I was caught off guard by many things that I should’ve seen earlier.
While I spent my early youth and teen years reading her novels, it’s been a decade or more since I read her regularly (I did read Halloween Party back in 2022 and 4.50 From Paddington in 2020, as well as Death in the Clouds that same year). I gave her up about the time I really got into fantasy novels in my late teens and early twenties. So maybe I’ve forgotten what a brilliant writer she truly was, how layered she can be. While her books were sometimes wildly uneven at times, she was still writing popular fiction and adding a lot of social commentary on British society, poking fun at it, and dealing with dark subjects that appealed to her and, hopefully, her broader audience. And her, it is written, she wrote this book in a flurry of about six weeks, while her other books generally took about three to four months to complete. And you can tell, as the prose moves the book swiftly away.
I can also see why this book has been adapted several times, as it seems prime for TV or a movie; that includes a British ITV version that adds Miss Marple in 2013, a French TV version in 2021, a new TV version coming from BBC and Britbox International for 2026 and new theatrical version being planned for 2027.
Mostly though, Endless Night works really well. It has eeriness to it and offers a splendid twist which then makes thing earlier book become more obvious.
The title is a reference to William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence”:
"Every night and every morn,
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night,
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night."
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