All of Agatha: Endless Night (1967)

This series of entries is commentary on my lifelong quest to read all of Agatha Christie's works in UK publication order. It was begun in January 2021.

Endless Night (1967) was a slog. None of the characters are likeable and because I have been consistently reading so much Christie, I recognized the plot points and guessed what was happening very early on. It's very much like Death on the Nile in some respects but without the Nile to make it interesting and intriguing and the other amusing characters to make it fun and Poirot and Race. Much of it was just tedious from a reader point of view but not, perhaps, from a ficcer point of view working out how the misdirection and manipulation is being done. The narrator's name is Michael Rogers and the poor rich girl is Ellie and the secretary/companion is Greta. And I'm not sorry I'm done with it. Here's a summary:

A newlywed couple faces a series of mysterious events and threats after building their dream house on a cursed land.

Next up: I've discovered to my great consternation that I skipped over a couple of books in the winter. So I will go back and do The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side and The Clocks, both of which I remember very well and have enjoyed.

Poet's Corner

Field Guide by Tony Hoagland

Once, in the cool blue middle of a lake,
up to my neck in that most precious element of all,

I found a pale-gray, curled-upwards pigeon feather
floating on the tension of the water

at the very instant when a dragonfly,
like a blue-green iridescent bobby pin,

hovered over it, then lit, and rested.
That’s all.

I mention this in the same way
that I fold the corner of a page

in certain library books,
so that the next reader will know

where to look for the good parts.

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My prompt was 'insects' and technically worms aren't insects, but they are in a section of Hamlet with maggots and that's how I came by them. I tried to do a poem in the manner of the one above. The title and references are from that section of Hamlet (Act 4, Scene 3).


we fat all creatures else to fat us by okapi

worms, those that feast on beggar and on king,
Hamlet’s only emperor for diet, his certain convocation

of politic, the ones who supped on Polonius, the ones that baited
hooks so that kings might progress through the guts of beggars,

twice coated, by slime and by scale, these worms
did not note the variable service of fat and lean,

and never once did they shove a fist of too many plastic
wrappers

to the bottom of the bin
and wince

at the crinkling