Elliot Chase narrates the story, and off the bat he admits that while he will try to be as objective as possible, there are times when his opinions and perceptions might interrupt the truth. He’s a playwright living in London, and he has had some mildly successful hits but has never rocketed to stardom, unlike his good friend and Hollywood actress Lana. She’s now in her forties, having retired from acting several years ago to move to the UK. Tired of the grey skies, she decides to whisk herself away to her Greek island, Aura, and she invites several friends to join her.
Kate is one of her oldest, closest friends and a fellow actor. While Lana is a movie star, Kate is true thespian of the stage. She’s currently rehearsing for Andromeda, but feels disconnected from the role, relies on alcohol and drugs to get her through the day, and she keeps arguing with her director. When Lana invites her to Greece, Kate books herself onto the next available flight.
Elliot sees Kate at the airport and they travel to Aura together. The island is so remote, they have to charter a boat from Mykonos to get there. When Lana isn’t staying, a young man called Nikos keeps watch over the villa. He’s quiet and aloof, but becoming tired of his isolation. He’s thinking of buying himself a boat to sail around the Mediterranean in, while also reflecting on his loneliness: he can’t even remember the last time he kissed someone.
Kate finds Elliot irritating, and she considers his love for Lana to be embarrassing and sycophantic. When they arrive, they meet Jason, Lana’s businessman husband, who didn’t know they’d be coming. He’s angry at Lana for inviting them, but she welcomes them warmly. Alongside Jason, there’s Lana’s son from a previous marriage, Leo, who’s seventeen, and Agathi, her cook and housekeeper.
The party then begin an awkward few days of socialising, with tensions ramping up between them. Elliot is curious of Kate’s instability and catches her having a tense talk with Jason one night by the pool. Leo is upset when his father goes shooting, so he decides to hide all his rifles in a chest. Agathi is nervous around Nikos – she doesn’t trust this sullen young man. Elliot is desperate for some attention from Lana, but she remains cut off and unusually distant.
Elliot had an unhappy childhood. He was constantly bullied and felt alienated from his family, and at the age of seventeen, he ran away from home to become an actor. He was never much good, but when a
famous writer, Barbara West, offers to take him in, he accepts. Barbara was cruel to him, constantly criticising him and expecting him to be grateful, and it’s hinted that part of his role in her household was to engage in sexual activity with her. Elliot is often teased about this relationship, by Kate and Jason in particular, who aren’t his biggest fans. There’s even a rumour that when Barbara died several years ago, it wasn’t because she accidently fell down the stairs, but because Elliot pushed her.
One afternoon on the island, Elliot follows Kate when she meets up with Jason, and he catches them kissing. They dated for a while, many years ago, but when Kate introduced him to Lana, it was clear they had chemistry and Lana and Jason married not long after. This was at the same time that Elliot met Lana. He’d been a long-time fan of her films and was initially starstruck. They got on well, but Lana quickly made it clear that they were only going to be friends. Elliot never truly accepted this; on the night they all met Jason, Elliot was planning on proposing to Lana. His dream of being with her has never waned, and he hopes that she’ll leave Jason after his affair.
Before they came to Greece, Lana found out about the affair and only told Elliot. She came to him once she found one of Kate’s earrings, and Elliot said it was probably true that the affair was happening. Despite his betrayal, Lana still loved Jason, so Elliot hatched a plan. He convinced Lana to invite them all to Greece and there, they would play an elaborate prank to test Jason’s love for her. They would stage a fake murder, where Lana is shot, and then she could see who Jason really cares for. What he doesn’t tell her is that he already knew about Kate and Jason, and he planted the earring so they would be discovered.
On the night of the fake murder, Elliot is excited to see how his masterplan will unfold. Lana “dies” and Jason is not especially devastated by it. Only Leo is in on the plan, to spare him the upset, and he’s excited to test out is own acting abilities to feign weeping over his mother’s body. The group were all in different places at the time of the murder, but Jason leads Niko out to scan the island for intruders. With the winds so high, Elliot says the police cannot come until it dies down.
Jason cannot find his guns, and when Leo admits to hiding them, they go to the chest to find them gone – Elliot removed them earlier. He has the spare revolver, which was filled with blanks, that Lana used to fake her death. He gives it instead to Kate, with a mix of live and blank bullets, saying that he’s worried Jason killed Lana, and now Niko as well, and that he’s dangerous. He sends her down to the jetty, hoping that she’ll be so angry and scared, and impulsive as she is, she will kill Jason.
Elliot watches from afar as his plan unfolds. But, when he goes down to the jetty, Kate hasn’t killed anyone. Niko is alive and well, and Elliot’s lies begin to unravel. He says he got carried away, and it was all a game and Lana is alive back in the villa. Jason, Kate and Niko are so angry with him, and distrustful. They don’t believe him and think he killed Lana in a jealous rage. They force the gun in his head and make him shoot himself, while he’s shouting for Lana to help. She doesn’t come, and with a flash, his memory goes blank.
Before they came to Greece, Lana didn’t just tell Elliot about the affair. She immediately confronted Kate, who admitted the truth, saying she’d always loved Jason but knows he only wants Lana, so she called it off. Lana forgives her, and while things are tense, their friendship survives. Both were angry at Elliot for manipulating the situation, and Lana discovered from reading his diaries one day, that Elliot has been trying to control her for years. The women concocted a plan to undermine him. They only plan to scare him enough that he’s humiliated, what they don’t bank on is that when Elliot wakes up – having only been knocked out – that he has live bullets in the gun and kills Lana in revenge.
Elliot is sent to prison, where he reflects on his lonely childhood. He thinks that inner, isolated boy is still inside him, desperate to be loved and he focused that drive on Lana, whose movies brought him so
much comfort. He killed Barbara, and all his successful plays were in fact written by her, which he stole. When he closes his eyes, he can still see Lana in his mind, and that brings him comfort.
The Fury got off to a pacey start as all the characters, with their complicated webs of personal history, are thrown together in traditional, Agatha Christie-eqsue set up. Elliot’s voice is strong and irreverent; he quickly dissects other characters and chastises them, while making nods to his unreliability as a narrator. It was a well-constructed narrative device: at first I found him harmless, and even charming, and by the end he is a repulsive, sycophantic worm. The twist-upon-a-twist worked well, due to the intricately crafted characterisation and high level of plot detail. While some characters were spotlighted, there was room for the others to have been fleshed out more; Jason and Niko feel like outlines of characters rather than fully-formed beings. Having said that, it was an entertaining and highly readable novel, with a distinct voice, sharp prose and dramatic conclusion.
Regarding adaptation, it feels like Knives Out with a dark but still playful sensibility, with more of a focus on themes of obsession, love, and ambition. The climax of the novel offers a successful and satisfying pay-off which would translate well to screen – for example, the use of flashbacks and witnessing scenes from a different character’s perspective etc. Additionally, the island of Aura would be visually dynamic, and the strong winds battling the villa would also make for spooky, suspenseful audio and perhaps allow more detail on the rumour that the island is haunted, as well as embellish the Greek mythology references. The quick pace and snappy twists lend themselves more to film, allowing the story to cash in on quick plot development and emphasise the high emotional stakes for the characters.