Нөлге Қарай: Агата Кристидің романы

1944 novel by Agatha Christie

Towards Zero is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in June 1944, and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in July of the same year. The first US edition of the novel retailed at $2.00 and the UK edition at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6). Maurice Richardson in the 6 August 1944 issue of The Observer wrote, "The new Agatha Christie has a deliciously prolonged and elaborate build up, urbane and cosy like a good cigar and red leather slippers. Poirot is absent physically, but his influence guides the sensitive inspector past the wiles of the carefully planted house party, and with its tortuous double bluff this might well have been a Poirot case. How gratifying to see Agatha Christie keeping the flag of the old classic who dun it so triumphantly flying!" Robert Barnard: "Superb: intricately plotted and unusual. The murder comes later, and the real climax of the murderer's plot only at the end. The ingenuity excuses a degree of far fetchedness. Highly effective story of the child and the bow and arrow (part II, chapter 6) and good characterization of the playboy sportsman central character – very much of that era when one was expected to behave like a gentleman at Wimbledon."

In 1956, Christie adapted the book into a play with Gerald Verner. It was first published by Samuel French Ltd. in 1957. The play was first staged in September 1956 at the St James Theatre in the West End of London. Christie first wrote a stage play under this title in 1945, with one week of performances in Martha's Vineyard in the US. The script was uncovered in 2015 by Julius Green. Towards Zero was included in the 1978 Christie play collection, The Mousetrap and Other Plays. It was performed in 2019 at The Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich, England, using the play as written by Agatha Christie in 1945 and recently "unearthed by author Julius Green." As the only prior staging using this script was in Martha's Vineyard, the theatre claims this as the first performance of this version of the 1945 stage play in Europe.

In 1995, a film adaptation lost its support from Agatha Christie's estate. When Rosalind Hicks, Christie's daughter and controller of her estate, reviewed the script, with such issues as incest in the script, she ordered that the name of the film be changed as well as the names of the characters. The film became Innocent Lies and met with mediocre success. In 2007, French filmmakers adapted the novel to Towards Zero, titled in French as L'Heure Zéro.

In 2007, the novel was adapted as part of the third season of the Agatha Christie's Marple television series produced by ITV. Geraldine McEwan plays Miss Marple. The novel did not include Miss Marple; other characters are changed as well for this adaptation to fit the series approach. Superintendent Battle is replaced by Superintendent Mallard played by Alan Davies. In 2019, the novel was again adapted as an episode of French television series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie. In 2024, the BBC commissioned Mammoth Screen and Agatha Christie Limited to reimagine Towards Zero as a limited series. The series is co produced by Britbox International.