Towards Zero by Agatha Christie * * * *

I read Towards Zero (1944) as part of the 2025 Agatha Christie Reading Challenge, and I listened to it as an audiobook narrated by Hugh Fraser. Going in, I remembered this story as a Miss Marple mystery, which turned out to be misleading. That version comes from the television adaptation. In its original form, Towards Zero does not feature Miss Marple at all.

Instead, this is a Superintendent Battle novel, one of Christie’s lesser-known recurring detectives. Knowing that helped recalibrate my expectations, but it also highlighted how much my memory of the story was shaped by the adaptation. Certain beats were familiar, others felt different, and at times I wasn’t sure whether I was remembering the book or the television version.

The setup itself is solid. A group of people gathers in a coastal setting, old relationships resurface, tensions simmer, and everything builds towards an inevitable act of violence. Christie’s idea here is that murder does not begin at the moment of the crime, but much earlier, when circumstances quietly align. That concept is clever, even if the execution did not leave a strong impression on me.

One character who did stand out was Neville Strange. He arrives with both his current wife and his ex-wife is there as well, and from the outset he comes across as deeply unpleasant. Even without getting into spoilers, it is hard not to see him as a walking red flag. His presence creates much of the emotional tension in the story, even when the plot itself feels restrained.

As with several other Christie audiobooks I listened to this year, I struggled with character overload. Names and personalities blurred together, and without a visual reference, I found it difficult to stay fully engaged. The investigation itself felt functional rather than gripping, and while I remember the broad outline of the solution, the details of how it all came together have mostly faded.

That, in many ways, sums up my experience with Towards Zero. It is not a bad book. It is competently written, thoughtfully structured, and thematically interesting. It just did not stay with me. Compared to some of Christie’s more memorable works, it felt muted.

Overall, Towards Zero is fine. It works. It does what it sets out to do. For readers exploring Christie beyond her most famous detectives, it is worth reading, especially to see Superintendent Battle in action. For me, though, it was one of those stories that passed through my mind without leaving much behind.