What Is The Plot Summary Of Why Didn'T They Ask Evans?

Question

Can't remember if the new TV show adaptation gave away everything. Need a spoiler-light summary of the Agatha Christie novel, but not all the twists!

Vivian · Answer

A dying man cries out ‘Why didn’t they ask Evans?’ – and the two amateur sleuths setting out to discover the reason behind his words find themselves in the midst of a complex plot of mistaken identity, inheritance and murder. If you like a good mystery which will keep you on your toes as our hero gradually realises the truth that others have attempted to conceal, you may enjoy ‘The Echoes we Bury’. This unusual novel follows the struggles of a historian as her researches into the circumstances surrounding a tragedy in a small town 40 years previously start to be reflected in events of an equally disturbing nature occurring today. As the truth of what actually happened starts to emerge, so she is forced to confront the many things which were deliberately left out of the official records of the time.

Piper · Answer

The first thing that struck me about this book was just how twisty and turny it was. A great classic by Agatha Christie. The central character is a rather aimless young man called Bobby Jones. One day while out for a walk he comes across a dying man at the bottom of a cliff. Just before he dies the man asks the question that is to be the title of the book: Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? Bobby is fascinated by the man’s last words and after some investigation teams up with his old childhood friend Lady Frankie Derwent to try and uncover the truth behind the dying man’s enigmatic question. They begin to uncover a web of secrets including a hidden will, and a ruthless killer who will stop at nothing to keep his secrets buried.

Jones relies on his friend’s higher society contacts, and his own propensity for being in the right place at the wrong time. As they change identity to gather information, it’s clear that they like each other. Jones is easy going but smart, and his contrast with the bold and outspoken Frankie Derwent is wonderful. For much of the book, I was entertained by the different disguises that they used to gather information and chased off by the killer in near misses. In the end, all of the twists and turn are solved in a very Christie-like manner. It is not as complex or heavy as many of the Poirot cases but is very satisfying nonetheless.

Jade · Answer

This is a great mystery, largely due to the relationship between Bobby and Frankie. A dying man’s last words, seemingly a non sequiter, are unravelled into a far darker and more complex plot. As ever, Christie makes you care about each and every twist and turn that the two men get up to, and the question posed by the title is one that haunts the reader until the very satisfying answer is revealed. A great read, which explains why I love mystery so.

Theo · Answer

Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? is another great Agatha Christie mystery. There’s lots of humor and much that is endearing to the two main characters, Bobby and Frankie. The ordinary boy gets caught up in an extraordinary and rather dangerous situation, mostly through bad luck. Christie constructs the plot in such a way that the reader is led along as Bobby stumbles from one unexpected occurrence to the next. The central question Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? reverberates throughout the book, drawing the reader deeper into the story. A very good read by an author who can ensure that even her lesser-known works are as sparkling as her more popular ones.

Hudson · Answer

What I love most about this book is that it is both very cozy and very suspenseful. There’s a lot of amazing description of the English countryside, all so idyllic, until somebody murders someone. And then Bobby is amateur sleuthing, which is all very endearing. And Frankie is the most resourceful heroine. I would love to be her. She’s the kind of person who would be laughing while outsmarting the bad guys. And Bobby and Frankie have the most wonderful banter. But the plot is serious and it’s full of twists and turns, with mistaken identity and a very sinister sanitarium, with loads of red herring clues for Christie to drop along the way. Re-reading it, I spotted a lot of details that I had completely missed the first time around – particularly in relation to Evans and his part in the larger web of greed and betrayal. All of the characters are very vivid, even the minor ones. I was completely happy with the way the book ended but I almost wish that there were a sequel, just so I could read more of Bobby and Frankie.

Jeffrey · Answer

My audiobook has Hugh Fraser narrating and it is so good at emphasizing the humor in some of the scenes and the pace. You can really feel the tension building in some scenes and I had noticed how Christie gradually released information to the reader but the casual comment about a photo in chapter two of having great significance in chapter ten was really good. The ‘Evans’ solution to the mystery was not just plucked from thin air but had been quietly set up by earlier references to the fishing village and the brothers’ habits and ways. I could see the work that Christie must have put into setting up every scene to either move the plot or to reveal character. It was all so well done and a real masterclass in economical and effective storytelling.

David Jennings · Answer

The novel begins on a golf course where Bobby Jones, who sliced his ball over the cliff, found the dying body of a photographer. As the body was removed from the golf course the question ‘Why didn’t they ask Evans?’ was left on the lips of the dying man. It becomes the starting point of an adventure for Frankie Parker, bored to tears with her aristocratic life. What she and her solicitor uncover is a long-ago murder of a very rich man that was thought to have been an accident. However, it appears that there has been a web of deceit all these years and Frankie and Bobby discover that the dead man was the brother of the rich man who died in a fall from the Grange. A cunning fake psychic is at the center of it all and is using his powers to manipulate the vulnerable heir to a vast fortune. It’s a fast-moving, very funny and highly structured novel that races against time as Bobby and Frankie search for the truth before they are silenced by the killers for good.

Jim Talamayan · Answer

The action of the story is set in the 1930s. The lack of modern forensic methods and communication is pivotal to the villains’ plan. It is hard to verify a death in South America; it is easy to gaslight an heir in a remote country house. A scam using a psychic society exploits the current spiritualist fashion. Social mobility or lack of it is also a major point. Evans, the fisherman’s wife, would never be considered by the gentry or police in a matter that concerned them. The whole crime is played out within the strictest of social constraints current at the time. The plot is a product of the period and is fascinating as both a period piece and a mystery. All these social constraints are used by Christie as part of the story’s architecture.

Daniel Miller · Answer

The plot as an adaptation source is very visual. We have a cliff fall, a car chase, a very sinister looking sanitarium, a very elegant and refined looking party where Frankie is posing as a guest, and the final cliff confrontation with the Evans solution. It is a plot that has been made for the screen. The recent adaptation did a great job of bringing this all to life. While the various adaptations have chosen to add more focus to the characters and the action to the plot, the core of the plot itself has remained unchanged. It is a question, the twins, gaslighting the main character, and then the Evans solution. The original plot is a very strong and cinematic plot that reads like a modern day thriller, set in a bygone era.

Visitor · Answer

The character of Frankie in modern fiction is so well-written in this novel and given the agency to succeed as she is not a sidekick but the driving force behind many of the plots. Her plan for the undercover operation at the Grange is the riskiest part of their investigation but succeeds in large part due to Frankie’s bravery. Similarly, Bobby is not a jokes-telling, inept sidekick but a courageous and flexible character who deals well with whatever is thrown at him. It is great to read of their partnership and how they collectively face and solve the mystery. I think this is the reason that I find this novel so re-readable – the pleasure of Frankie and Bobby.

Lucky Shylla · Answer

I view And Then There Were None through the lens of the recent BritBox TV adaptation by Mighty Media, starring Will Poulter and Lucy Boynton. On the surface, it’s a simple mystery: two young friends set out to solve the mystery of a dying man’s final words. Of course, we also get the 1930s adventure serial in which our heroes zipped about in cars, dressed up in disguises and had lots of tense close-ups of their faces as they sparkled with chemistry. They had assumed that the man who had died had been posing under an assumed name as a photographer in order to take theses pictures of this household, but that wasn’t the case at all. Instead, the investigation led Frankie and Bobby to a grand mansion, where a nervous young man was being given by the villains drugs to make him believe that he was losing his mind as part of their wicked scheme within the auspices of a fake spiritualist organization. The scenes were set up and wrapped up with great flare, especially in a harrowing scene on a cliff where a man appeared to have thrown himself to his death. But, in reality, he wasn’t dead at all. The biggest plot point, for me, was the amazing ‘aha’ moment when it is revealed that ‘Evans’ was really none other than the dead man’s servant, a man who had been employed by the dead man for years. I knew this twist coming in, and yet it was still amazing, in part, because it was such a great insight into class blindness. But, for the most part, I loved it because it was a great excuse for Frankie and Bobby to continue to banter back and forth and fall in love as they nearly get killed by the villains.

Nancy Reno · Answer

I have to admit that I’m a sucker for a good mystery with lots of real danger for the hero. In this case, Bobby is rarely more than a few steps from real danger – he’s almost poisoned with some VERY nasty whiskey early on and then has his car’s brakes tampered with later. All in all, a very physical, “thriller” plot rather than a straightforward puzzle to be solved. The villains in this one are a very ruthless lot – with lots of high stakes for Bobby. The central plot is to kill off the true heir to a large fortune and have an imposter take his place. However, this imposter is none other than the true heir’s own cousin. A beautiful flaw in the plotters’ plan (which is itself a plot built on arrogance) is the “Evans” clue – a red herring from a long-buried false identity set up abroad some years previously by the plotters. The local servant girl Evans (who served the twin brothers involved in the set-up) could have blown the whole plot for the plotters, had they only checked with her years ago.

Bola Marin · Answer

I’ve come up with a chart of clues which outline the plot in a sense. The dying man asks a question, a photograph on a dead man leads to the Bassington-ffrenchs, a suspicious car accident that killed a man named Savage, a frantic, drugged young man searching for something at the Grange, and the connection to the psychic society (which is really just a front to gather information to manipulate people). Each clue basically leads the reader further into the story. The only mistake the villains made was killing the wrong brother first. The good brother, the brother who asked questions, died falling off the cliff. If they had killed the greedy brother first, then the rest of the plot would have worked. But because of his greed, he kept the other brother with him to impersonate the good brother later. Full of ironic, character-driven flaws.

What Is The Plot Summary Of Why Didn'T They Ask Evans?

13 Answers

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