Evil Under the Sun (1941) by Agatha Christie

Previously, I reviewed three originally non-English or untranslated detective novels, namely Mika Waltari's Kuka murhasi rouva Skrofin? (Who Murdered Mrs. Kroll?, 1939), Ton Vervoort's Moord onder maagden (Murder Among Virgins, 1965) and Seimaru Amagi's Ikazuchi matsuri satsujin jiken (Deadly Thunder, 1998), but promised to end my little world tour to return to the civilized, English-speaking world – which gave me an idea. Why not revisit another timeless classic that I have only read before in a Dutch translation? Something I did last month with John Dickson Carr's The Problem of the Green Capsule (1939). 

So my pick was between Ellery Queen's The Greek Coffin Mystery (1932) and Agatha Christie's Evil Under the Sun (1941), but the latter seemed more appropriate for the time of year. 

Evil Under the Sun takes place on a small, fictitious island off Leathercombe Beach, Devon, where an 18th century sea captain had made his home and left his descendants with a cumbersome inheritance, but the 1920s birthed "the great cult of the Seaside for Holidays" – property was sold and developed into a tourist destination. The Jolly Roger Hotel, Smugglers' Island, is "usually packed to the attics" during the holiday season. A quiet, peaceful place where the sun shines, the sea is blue and the beaches packed with sunbathers. Not exactly "the sort of place you'd get a body," but Hercule Poirot knows all to well that "there is evil everywhere under the sun." And evil comes to the island to cut the detective's holiday short!

Arlena Stuart is a retired stage actress who's as famous as she's notorious, "fatally attractive," who has the habit of making "men go crazy about her" everywhere she goes. She was cited in the Codrington divorce case, but Lord Codrington turned her down flat when the divorce was finalized. Only for the gallant Kenneth Marshell to come to the rescue and married the scandal plagued actress. Arlena and Kenneth Marshell are spending their holiday on Smugglers' Island with Kenneth's adolescent daughter, Linda, but trouble begins as soon as Arlena sets foot on the island.

There's another, much younger, married couple staying on the island, the Redferns. Christine is a quiet, nice looking woman in "her fair washed-out way," but her husband, Patrick, is a handsome and athletic man with "a kind of infectious enjoyment and gaiety" about him. Patrick becomes quite infatuated with Arlena and they're very open about it, which naturally puts a strain on the situation. But there are more people who a problem with that devil of woman.

Rosamund Darnley is a well-known, successful dressmaker and a childhood love-interest of Kenneth, but she's worried what kind of influence she has on her stepdaughter, Linda, who's not particular fond of her stepmother – which is why she asks him to divorce her. Kenneth is determined to stick to the 'till-death-do-us-part bit of his marriage vows. Reverend Stephen Lane is another hotel guest and a religious fanatic who believes evil walks the earth and its name is Arlena Stuart Marshell. In addition to a few less suspicious-looking hotel guests who get to witness this prelude to murder. Such as the retired Major Barry ("a teller of long and boring stories"), Miss Emily Brewster ("a tough athletic woman" who disliked women "smashing up homes"), Horace Blatt (who tries "to be the life and soul of any place he happened to be in") and the Gardeners ("those yapping Americans"). But then again, is anyone ever really above suspicion in a detective novel?

Hercule Poirot can feel there's murder in the air, but, as he said once before in Egypt, that "if a
person is determined to commit murder it is not easy to prevent them." So everyone's holiday comes to an abrupt end when Arlena is found strangled to death on the beach of Pixy Cove. Inspector Colgate is only too happy to accept Poirot's help and give him a free hand.

So now he has to gather and arrange "every strange-shaped little piece" of the puzzle, physical and psychological, as he tries to see where every piece fits to get a clear and comprehensible picture of the murder. Clues such as an overheard conversation and an empty bottle thrown from a window. A bath that no one would admit to having taken. A new pair of scissors and a smashed pipe found at the crime scene. A green calendar and skein of magenta wool with several pesky, somewhat unusual alibis hinging on typewriters, wristwatches and physical impossibilities complicating the case even further – while blackmail, dope smuggling and witchcraft discreetly hover in the background. This all sounds like an incredibly tricky, labyrinthine-plotted detective story, but it actually might be one of Christie's simplest and most uncomplicated novels. She just knew how to play the reader like a fiddle.

I largely remembered the who-and how with only the why having become muddled in my memory, but, as the story began to fill in the blanks, I was reminded why Christie is the Queen of Crime. Carr and Christie are the only readers who consistently gave their readers two different experiences with the same book with the second read showing you how everything was logically and fairly laid out in front of you. So you couldn't have missed the obvious, but, more often than not, you did and a second read probably wants to make you kick yourself. That has been my experience with Carr's The Problem of the Green Capsule and Christie's Evil Under the Sun.

Remembering most of the solution, I could sit back to simultaneously admire and be astonished at how brazenly obvious everything was while she made it appear like a maze without an exit! The old bag lied through her teeth without uttering a single untrue word and I say that with the upmost affection. She even hinted at the solution before the murder was committed. What a woman!

So, technically, Evil Under the Sun is a small masterpiece and a shining example of the Golden Age detective story, but there are two tiny, almost minuscule, specks that need to be mentioned along with the praise. Poirot's observation that Arlena's murder is "a very slick crime" and the information he requests was a lucky guess, or an inspired piece of guesswork, as opposed to logical reasoning. Secondly, Christie indulged in some of her favorite themes and tropes, which is fine, but she has used them even better and in a much grander fashion in some of her better-known mystery novels. But having writing that down, I feel like I took a magnifying glass to Rembrandt's Night Watch to haunt for small imperfection.

As long-time readers of this blog know, or something you probably guessed from this review's opening, I like to explore the obscure, little-known nooks and crannies of the detective story, but, if you spend too much time there, you can forget why Carr and Christie towered above their contemporaries. The Problem of the Green Capsule and Evil Under the Sun were a much needed reminder that they earned their reputation as the absolute bests ever on merit and not merely for being popular fan favorites or selling copies like a money printer.