Agatha redux: ‘The Fury’ author Alex Michaelides tries his hand at a classic formula

February 04, 2024 12:00 am • Last Updated: February 02, 2024 1:09 pm

By Rick Koster
Day Arts/Features writer

Alex Michaelides (Wolf Marloh)

If there’s a Mount Everest of crime fiction, it’s Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None.” With over 100 million copies purchased, it’s the world’s bestselling mystery.

By now you know the plot: After receiving mysterious invitations, eight invited guests arrive on a private island and, one by one, are murdered.

Who the hell dunit, indeed?

The book has been an irresistible lure for countless crime novelists who hope to pay homage to Christie’s classic setup with doses of originality and style. And a few have pulled it off. Examples are Ruth Ware’s “One by One”; “The Guest List” by Lucy Foley; “The Decagon House Murders” by Yukito Ayatsuji; and “They All Fall Down” by Rachell Howzell Hall.

A new effort

Now you can add “The Fury” to that elite list. It’s the latest by bestselling author Alex Michaelides, whose previous titles are “The Silent Patient” and “The Maidens,” and the new book is a proudly acknowledged effort to place a fun and clever spin on Christie’s most famous work.

Michaelides will discuss “The Fury” Friday in Westerly’s United Theatre, and fellow bestseller Deborah Goodrich Royce, host of the Ocean House Author Series, will moderate. The event is presented in partnership with Bank Square Books.

In “The Fury,” successful playwright Elliot Chase narrates his experiences on an annual Easter trip to an idyllic private Greek island owned by his friend Lana Farrar, one of the most famous and reclusive actresses in the world. Other attendees are also old friends, but some of those relationships are frayed by bitterness and jealousy. Of course, in classic fashion, the reunion quickly turns dangerous and terrifying when one of the guests is murdered. Worse, the titular Fury — the Greek nickname for a periodic and dangerous windstorm that sweeps the Aegean — isolates the guests (and the killer!) on the island with no possible escape or incoming aid.

That certainly parallels the Christie template, but listen to Elliot in Chapter One as he boldly states the similarities AND differences:

“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 tail. But 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.”

A stylistic departure

One byproduct of Michaelides’ “Fury” is that his efforts also mean that “The Fury” is very stylistically and structurally different from “The Maidens” and “The Silent Patient.” The former is set at Cambridge University (Michaelides’s alma mater) and centers on a charismatic classics professor and a coterie of his female students who belong to a secret society practicing ancient rites associated with Persephone. “The Silent Patient,” which has sold almost 7,000,000 copies, is narrated by a psychologist whose patient turns mute after murdering her husband.

Last week, in a Zoom conversation, the quietly polite and eloquent Michaeledis discussed “The Fury,” the evolution of his style and, of course, Agatha Christie. Here are excerpts from the conversation, edited for context and length.

Q: I wish I could be the first to interview you about “The Fury” and NOT bring up Agatha Christie, but that’s not going to happen. And I suspect your OK with it.

A: You’re 100 percent right. You can’t write a book like “The Fury” without acknowledging Agatha Christie’s influence, and I was in fact hyperaware of it. The simplicity of the isolated island setting is part of the attraction. And so many other writers have tried it.

Sometimes those books are great and sometimes they’re ludicrous. The permutations range from high and original concept to very simple. And that’s the attraction. You go in knowing there are all sorts of expectations, and it’s just fun to play with those.

Q: It could be argued you have an unfair advantage: you grew up on Cypress, so the characteristics of a private Greek island are well within your boundaries of expertise, right?

A: (Laughs) You’re right. It was so natural to set the book on the island. Easy. It’s like describing my parents.

Q: Part of the magic of “The Fury” is the complexity and humanity of the characters. They all have flaws and are rendered with remarkable depth. Each has charming qualities and qualities that aren’t so charming.

A: Well, first I’ll say that ALL the characters are me. (Laughs) So I don’t judge any of them because I love them! It’s the same as judging intimate pals no matter how badly they might behave. I didn’t want any of them to be the sociopath but, instead, all are wounded to a degree.

I wrote pages of pages on each character — not for readers to see but because it was important to ME. I wanted to broaden the characters and imbue them with a bit of literary depth to take it beyond genre.

Q: I assume Elliot was the most difficult to write. He’s the narrator and that must have been a balancing act because, up front, he tells us he’s unreliable. He’s also a bit shallow and not particularly likable. At the same time, he has a sort of hilariously snide Oscar Wilde sense of wit and judgment that makes him an irresistible guide through the whole adventure. Was he fun or difficult to capture?

A: I was aware he might not be likable, but that’s fine because I don’t care if a character is likable. I want the character to be INTERESTING because he’s got to carry the story. And I did get a real kick out of writing Elliot.

Q: “The Fury” is definitely a departure from your first two books. Was it just the desire to tackle Mount Christie, so to speak, or is there more?

A: I needed to fall in love with writing again. “The Silent Patient“ was a love letter to crime fiction. I had no expectations, no agent, and no one would read it. And when it DID happen, I wasn’t prepared. My editor said, ”You’re gonna have to write a second book.“ That was great news -- but I didn’t enjoy that process. I didn’t like it. I realized I needed to reinvent myself.

I decided to completely ad lib and have fun. I had no idea who the murderer was, but I enjoyed writing Elliot. I kept thinking, “It could be him!“ Or … it could be someone else. Elliot could be telling these events while sitting in a bar, just wisecracking to listeners, and it was fun to inhabit that character.

Q: And everything fell into place?

A: Yes! I got such a kick out of it. I’d figured out the twist and, originally, I even put it up front, at the first of the novel. That cracked me up. But my editor said to hold it till the end. It was the right thing to do.

The first two books were written in third person but I’m never going back to that. It worked at the time but, particularly, writing “The Maidens,” it felt dead. I was walking on a beach in Cypress and I was just panicking. It was depressing. Finally, a friend said, “You’ve got a sense of humor. Use it.” And I did. I am.