When I started reading this novel, I was surprised as it started reading like one of Christie's Mary Westmacott "romances". It is told in first person, the narrator being a young man, and begins with his thoughts and feelings about falling in love with both a place and a girl. It does not initially read like a typical Christie mystery to me.
The majority of this novel is a story about the young couple as they fall in love, marry, and begin their life together. They have built a dream home that they had been planning together since the day they met. Everything seems to be going well, and, in my opinion, it would have remained so if Christie had continued with this aspect of the story. However, like most of her stories, there is a pretty big twist at the end that changes the story from what the reader has expected. Brief rundown of the main conflict: they move into their house, but are soon threatened by a local gypsy who warns them that there is a curse on their land yadda, yadda, yadda. There is also some conflict between the couple and their various family members, but for the purpose of this post, I'm skipping over those details.
As I was thoroughly enjoying the "romance" story between the two main characters, I found myself to be very disappointed with the ending. While the first three-quarters of the novel seemed to occur at a comfortable pace, the ending seemed too rushed. Everything was happening too quickly, without any real details. All of a sudden, there have been three deaths, only one presented to the readers; the other two were revealed through correspondences. I also felt that there were too many loose ends that were left hanging, not tied up or concluded in any way. There were too many coincidences among the characters; they were connected in ways that were a little unbelievable, if not bewildering. It seemed as though Christie was throwing in as many little red herrings as she possibly could with this one.
But what I was most disappointed with was the twist at the end. And I suppose that's mainly because I prefer to see the good in people,and would like to believe that what we see, and what we are told can be trusted.
Not so with this novel.
I was surprised to learn that this novel was actually a favorite of both Christie and her husband. The reason being the exact one that I ended up disliking about it; the twist at the end. Without giving any details away, it basically involves a character who chooses "evil" over "good".
I think that this story would have been more successful (for my tastes) if Christie had chosen to go in a different direction with it. As it is, I would probably only recommend Endless Night to people who enjoy unexpected, unbelievable twists, who are thoroughly bored and desperate for a book to read, or who, like me, have set a personal goal of completing all of Agatha Christie's novels.
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