What you need to know about the novel that inspired BBC's Towards Zero
The BBC is ready to bring more drama and suspense to our Sunday evenings, with their latest murder mystery series Towards Zero. Starting this week on 2 March, the three-part series follows a married couple, Neville and Kay, who spend their summer at Neville's aunt beach house, along with Neville's ex wife Audrey. What could possibly go wrong? Well when a murder occurs, quite a lot.
Towards Zero is based on an Agatha Christie novel and if you want to read the story before the series drops then this is everything you need to know about it.
What novel is Towards Zero based on?
The BBC series Towards Zero is inspired by the Agatha Christie novel of the same name, first published in the UK in July 1944. Christie is of course known as a prolific detective novel writer and created the characters of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, and the stage play The Mousetrap.
Towards Zero follows Superintendent Battle, who appears in four of Christie's other novels, but is not as well known as characters Marple and Poirot.
In the novel, Lady Tressilian invites her deceased husband's ward and his new wife to stay with her for the summer, however he also invites his ex-wife Audrey to accompany them. During their stay Lady Tressilian's old friend Treves dies, and then Lady Tressilian herself is murdered. After the two deaths Superintendent Battle and his nephew are called in to investigate.
How does the series differ from the novel?
Well the biggest difference between the series and the novel is Superintendent Battle is nowhere to be seen, instead it's Inspector Leech, played by Matthew Rhys, who investigates the deaths.
The series screenwriter Rachel Bennette explained their thinking behind this character switch was due to Christie's de-centring of the detective in the story, a shift from her other novels, which usually put Poirot or Miss Marple in the focus.
"Battle spends a lot of the case wishing he was Poirot – and then she splits the deducing duties between Battle and the character of Angus MacWhirter who is a guest at the hotel, and a wonderfully original Christie creation," she explained. "This is all designed to serve the plot, but it also led me to feel that what interests her most in this book is character and theme, and so I found myself leaning into the richness of Angus’ character as the investigator figure."
With this in mind the series then lent itself to creating a new original character in Inspector Leech, who Bennette believes still holds all those classic Christie references we know and love.
She describes him as a mixture "Battle, Angus MacWhirter and Battle’s nephew Jim Leach who is the local policeman in the book".
Well, we're now super intrigued to see how this new character impacts the classic mystery.
Towards Zero is available on BBC One and BBC iPlayer from 2 March
You Might Also Like
