Daisy Darker

Daisy Darker is a homage to And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. Christie described this novel as one of the most challenging to write due to its complex plot. The author explained, “ten people had to die without it becoming ridiculous or the murderer being obvious” (Christie, Agatha. Agatha Christie: An Autobiography. Dodd, Mead & Company, 1977, p. 457). First published in the US in 1940, the book remains the best-selling crime novel of all time. It has been adapted for the screen more frequently than any of Christie’s other works.

In Christie’s novel, eight people are invited to an isolated island off the Devon coast by an unknown host. All have guilty secrets. In each of the guests’ rooms, there is the same framed rhyme. There are also figurines on the dining room table. After their first dinner, a phonograph recording accuses each visitor of responsibility for a death or deaths. That night, one of the guests dies from a poisoned drink. From then on, the members of the group are killed in various ways, including a blow to the head, a cyanide injection, and being pushed off a cliff. The guests soon realize that the murder methods correspond to the lines of the rhyme, and after each one, a figurine disappears.

The dwindling survivors suspect that someone is hiding on the island and killing them. However, a thorough search reveals no intruders. Meanwhile, a gun belonging to one of the guests goes missing. Shortly afterward, Mr. Justice Wargrave, a retired judge, is found shot in the head. The two remaining survivors, Philip Lombard and Vera Claythorne, both assume the other one is the murderer. Vera shoots Lombard, believing he is about to kill her. She then returns to her room and finds a noose waiting for her. Traumatized, she hangs herself, fulfilling the final line of the rhyme. Later, a message in a bottle is found by a trawler. Mr. Justice Wargrave’s confession reveals that, after being diagnosed with a terminal illness, he decided to serve justice on people who escaped paying for their crimes in court. He faked his own death, killed the other guests, and then finally shot himself in the head.

Daisy Darker features many parallels to And Then There Were None. Both are set on fictional islands off the coast of Southwest England. For plot purposes, these islands are deliberately remote, cutting the characters off from the rest of the world at high tide. Feeney echoes Christie’s storyline as eight characters arrive on the island at the invitation of a person whose motivations are unclear. The theme of guilt and retribution for unpunished misdeeds is key to both narratives. In Daisy Darker, home videos alluding to the characters’ offenses replace the phonograph recording accusing the guests of past crimes. As in Christie’s novel, the ensuing murders are based on the lines of a rhyme. Instead of figurines disappearing to mark a death, the relevant lines of the poem are struck out on a chalkboard. As the body count mounts, the survivors alternate between believing a murderer is hiding on the island and suspecting one another.

Many murder methods from And Then There Were None are echoed in Daisy Darker. Like the first character to die in Christie’s novel, Frank is killed by poisoned alcohol. The manner of Daisy’s death echoes another of Christie’s victims who is pushed from a cliff. Meanwhile, Rose, like Philip Lombard, is shot by her own gun. The most significant similarity is between Nana and Mr. Justice Wargrave. Both characters want to dispense moral justice before they die. To do so, they fake their own deaths, murder the offenders, and then die by suicide.