“Best of an island is once you get there—you can’t go any farther … you’ve come to the end of things”
So thought General Macarthur in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. But he was wrong. At least for crime-fiction writers, a trip to an island is regularly the start of things; often pretty great things.
I grew up in South Queensferry, within walking distance of the village of Cramond and—across a tidal causeway—Cramond Island. It’s a fair old trudge but we didn’t have Netflix so every Ferry kid made the trip at least once, with a picnic—washed down with Pepsi or Buckfast, depending on age—out to Cramond Island, either hoping to make it back before the causeway was covered, or hoping to get cut off and have a few Lord-of-the-Flies hours till the tide turned again.
So maybe it was inevitable that, sooner or later, I’d send Dandy Gilver and Alec Osborne to Cramond Island on a case, as I have just done in The Turning Tide. Certainly, I was following in illustrious footsteps. I’ve been reading mystery plots set on islands my whole life. Here are my top five:
The Island: Soldier Island / Burgh Island
The Novel: And Then There Were None
Was And Then There Were None the first? I don’t know, but for sure this is a prime example of the island as inspiration. Christie reportedly went to Burgh Island off the South Devon coast on a writing retreat to get an earlier novel finished. While she was there staying at the luxy Burgh Island Hotel though she conceived of a murder plot hinging on the intermittent isolation a tidal island offers. Evil Under the Sun, published a couple of years later, used the same setting but it’s the premise of And Then… that’s still being honoured and enjoyed eighty years later. Incidentally, the hotel readily plays up the Christie associations and still requires black tie for dinner in the grand ballroom.
The Island: Kirrin Island / Isle of Purbeck
The Novel: Five on a Treasure Island
Published a year or two later, but coming first in my reading life, was Enid Blyton’s Five on a Treasure Island. Again, the story goes that Blyton visited the spot (actually a peninsula, and not even one with a very thin neck) to see Corfe Castle and recognised a golden setting for an adventure. She made Kirrin a true island, but transplanted the castle faithfully, added a shipwreck, a treasure map and—I can imagine her thinking “Sod it. Who’s going to stop me?”—a cache of gold ingots. This was the start of twenty-one novels featuring the Famous Five and quite possibly the source of Queensferry kids’ belief that disappearing off to Cramond was a normal thing to do.
The Island: Shetland
The Novels: Ann Cleeves’ Shetland Octet
No round-up of islands in crime fiction would be respectable if it didn’t include Ann Cleeves’ Shetland octet. Again, this is a case of an author being on an island for quite another purpose—this time working as a cook at a bird observatory—but having the setting worm its way into her imagination and blossom as wonderful plots, beloved characters, and unparalleled atmosphere, from the seasons quartet opening on Raven Black to the elements quartet closing on Wild Fire. I’ve done more whining and grumbling about Ann’s stopping at eight than about any other author bringing the hammer down. But, deep inside, I’ve got enormous respect for her decision. And thank God for the telly.
The Island: Mictlan
The Novel: They All Fall Down
Rachel Howzell Hall’s They All Fall Down is definitely the off-spring of Christie’s classic. She set out deliberately to write a modern twist on the “going down like ninepins” plot. But every child has two parents, right? Not only are the characters here about as different from Christie’s generals and schoolmarms as you could imagine—Miriam Macy is a terrific tragicomic invention—but the island itself is a good deal more thrilling than Purbeck. Mictlan, named for the Aztec underworld and reached on a boat called La Charon, is a private paradise off the Mexico coast in the Sea of Cortez. Another wonderful updating is that the guests gathered there to await their fate have been lured on the pretext of an appearance on a reality show. They’re told this in an email signed “A.Nansi”, by the way. So the signs are clear that they should have let the chance go by. I’m so glad they didn’t; this novel is a ton of fun.
The Island: Tregarrick / Tresco / Burgh
The Novel: Death at High Tide
My island-hopping tour of crime fiction comes full circle with Hannah Dennison’s Death at High Tide. It takes place on the Isles of Scilly, specifically on a tidal island that’s half Tresco and half Christie’s Burgh, only with a much dowdier hotel. I’m a longtime fan of Dennison’s writing and would have followed her to any setting, but a recent widow and her sister mysteriously inheriting a run-down, once splendid, Art Deco pile and hot-footing it off there? I couldn’t have been more in. The writing of recent grief is sharp and convincing, but the book has a sunny nature overall. Like Ann Cleeves’ Shetland books, it’s pitch-perfect on the feuds and friendships, alliances and claustrophobia, of an isolated community. The relationship between the sisters is appealing and authentic and the dangers of fog, tides, and cliffs are to the fore. If I’d read this as a kid, I might never have gone on all those stealth picnics to Cramond.
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So that’s my personal list. Now I’ll sit back and wait to smack myself in the head when I’m reminded of what I’ve missed. But I’m also hoping to hear about new ones. Please let me know what your favourite islands in crime fiction are; I can’t imagine ever feeling I’ve read enough of them.
