“There was a real fashion in the 1930s for locked-room mysteries, and The Invisible Host is a good example of one of those, but there is no evidence that Christie was aware of it. “It’s always possible she heard something in passing,” said Hervé. “Is it so implausible to imagine that, at the very least, Christie saw the film and unconsciously drew on it four or five years later when she came to write her brilliant landmark mystery?”Īnna Hervé, editorial director for literary estates at Christie’s publisher HarperCollins, said that although there are “similarities” between the novels, there was “no obvious link” between them. “Christie need never have heard of, nor much less have read, The Invisible Host to have been influenced by it,” writes the historian. Each novel opens with them reading or thinking over their invitations … to the penthouse/island from their anonymous host,” points out Evans, adding that while the novel was not published in England, its 1934 film adaptation played there. “In general both books are about people entrapped within sealed locations … who are methodically ‘executed,’ as it were, by a seemingly omnipotent unknown assailant who never appears as such but rather speaks to them through mechanical means … All of the people … hide guilty secrets. “Do not doubt me, my friends you shall all be dead before morning.” Published in the US in 1930, and adapted for the stage that year, it went on to be filmed as The Ninth Guest.Ĭrime fiction historian Curtis Evans, in an introduction to the forthcoming UK edition of The Invisible Host, cites the “astonishing likeness” between the two novels, saying that it is “not just a matter of similar elements being in play: the entire basic plot idea is the same, the admittedly ingenious variations which Christie played upon it notwithstanding”. It begins with eight guests invited to a penthouse by telegram, where they are then told over the radio that they will all soon be dead. Husband and wife Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning were newspaper journalists in New Orleans when they co-wrote their first mystery novel, The Invisible Host. She was the ultimate genius behind ‘by indirections shall we find directions out.Bruce Manning and Gwen Bristow Composite: Dean Street Press “What Agatha Christie taught me was all about the delicate placement of the red herring. “The most astonishingly impudent, ingenious and altogether successful mystery story since The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.” - Daily Herald (UK) Christie’s previous best-on the top notch of detection.” - New Statesman (UK) “There is no cheating the reader is just bamboozled in a straightforward way from first to last….The most colossal achievement of a colossal career. “One of the very best, most genuinely bewildering Christies.” - The Observer (UK) “One of the most ingenious thrillers in many a day.” - Time magazine It is the most baffling mystery Agatha Christie has ever written.” - New York Times “The whole thing is utterly impossible and utterly fascinating. Just one book is never enough." - VAL MCDERMID, Internationally Bestselling Author Critical Praise "Agatha Christie is the gateway drug to crime fiction both for readers and for writers. Which among them is the killer and will any of them survive? One by one, the guests share the darkest secrets of their wicked pasts. On the island they are cut off from everything but each other and the inescapable shadows of their own past lives. Ten people, each with something to hide and something to fear, are invited to an isolated mansion on Indian Island by a host who, surprisingly, fails to appear. "If you’re one of the few who haven’t experienced the genius of Agatha Christie, this novel is a stellar starting point." - DAVID BALDACCI, #1 New York Times Bestselling AuthorĪn exclusive authorized edition of the most famous and beloved stories from the Queen of Mystery.
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