The Fury

Agatha Christie is known as “The Queen of Crime” and is the author of 66 detective novels, some of which have been fundamental in shaping the modern detective novel. One of her most iconic novels, And Then There Were None, features a group of people stranded on an isolated island, murdered one by one, all the while knowing that the murderer is one of them. With a later novel, Murder on the Orient Express, Christie created the same isolated setting for her characters on a train stranded by a blizzard. Christie is also famous for creating iconic detectives like Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

In the opening pages of The Fury, the protagonist, Elliot, brings Christie’s name and work into the story, telling the reader, “Thanks to Agatha Christie, we all know how this kind of story is meant to play out: a baffling crime, followed by a dogged investigation, an ingenious solution—then, if you’re lucky, a twist in the tale” (6). However, he quickly follows that with the protest that “this is a true story, not a work of fiction. It’s about real people, in a real place. If anything, it’s a whydunit—a character study, an examination of who we are; and why we do the things we do” (6).