I finished reading Endless Night by Agatha Christie and am not at all impressed. This review might contain spoilers, but I can’t help I have to rant.
Nah, I am not letting the ending influence the overall rating for the book again. It is easy to get wowed by the intelligent ending and rate this book highly. But it wasn’t a good read for me.
Right from the start, I didn’t trust the narrator. I guess I’ve been fooled by many first-person narrations for my liking. Michael is a poor narrator - not sure if it was intentional on Christie’s part. None of his actions, his reactions made sense to me, further heightening my suspicions about what I was being told by him. So the twist towards the end fell flat - it was as if I already knew deep down and was just waiting for it to be revealed.
Oh, and I was waiting a lot of time throughout the book. 2/3rds in and there is hardly anything that takes place. To me, the love story between Mike and Ellie was not interesting. The way it played out was dull. It got tiring at one point to read Mike tell what was happening. The suspense around Gipsy’s Acre wasn’t built at all. It was supposed to be a “gothic story with gypsy’s warnings” - wasn’t the case.
This may have been a brilliant psychological thriller for its time. But a lot has happened since 1967 and too many have been inspired by the style of surpriseful narration from this mystery master for this style to create the necessary impression anymore. This read was so unlike any other from Agatha Christie and this time it is not in positive sense.