And Then There Were None

And Then There Were None is the story of eight people, invited to an island supposedly for different reasons - holiday, job, undercover assignment - but in fact lured there under false pretenses. When they arrive, they do not find their hosts Mr and Mrs U. N. Owen but only a butler and his wife who later transpire also to have been tricked into going there. For every one of them has a guilty secret, although some feel more guilty about it than others, and their mysterious host(s) appear to be out to 'get' them for it ....

I must confess that one slight detraction before I read this is that I had seen the 2015 BBC adaptation so I knew the murderer's identity from the start. However, the enjoyment lay in seeing how Christie 'tells' you show more without telling. There are subtle hints if you already know, which you probably wouldn't spot otherwise.

What I also liked was that the book is genuinely suspenseful even for someone like me who knows the denouement. Instead of the melodrama of the BBC version, the murder methods are a lot more 'sensible' so, for example, no one gets a knitting needle through their head/neck! It also turns out that the anti-heroine does not get frisky with the alpha male, the extended sequences of this being an excuse on TV to treat viewers to the impressive sight of Aidan Turner in dishabille. In the book, things are strictly business like and Vera remains faithful to the memory of her beloved Hugo whom she so badly disappointed.

There is also a great deal less drunkenness and hysteria among the men, and the crimes for which someone is punishing the reluctant guests are a lot more believable, for example, the ex-policeman did not kick anyone to death in a police cell, his real crime being totally 'hands-off', and the general did not shoot his subordinate in the back in HQ with the whole battalion just outside. (Much more believably, he sent him off on a reconnaissance mission on which he hoped, correctly, he would be killed.) Also, the last victim is not left dangling very implausibly while the villain explains all: the explanation of how it was done is all in a couple of epilogues.

The TV version went decidedly downhill from episode 2 onwards so I had doubts, but was very pleased to find that the book is a good deal better. So for anyone who might be put off by having seen the adaptation, this is a good page turning read, representing the Queen of Crime at the top of her game. show less

This was my first Agatha Christie murder mystery and let me tell you, it certainly won’t be my last! I actually sat down to read this book earlier today and did not stop until I was finished. It was one of those “forget to eat, forget the need to go to the bathroom” kind of reading sessions and I have no regrets :P

Agatha Christie is THE best selling novelist of all time and I can definitely see why. I decided that I wanted to give her a go and did a little research as to which of her books were the best. And Then There Were None was on the top of most lists so I headed to my local Chapters, bought it and was ready to go!

This novel is INCREDIBLE. The mystery of this masterpiece is that ten people are lured to an island and are show more murdered one by one in accordance with a creepy child’s nursery rhyme called “Ten Little Indians.” One of the ten people is the killer, but who could it be? Will they be able to deduce who their resident homicidal maniac is before it is too late?

As I already said, this book kept me reading right through to the end. I loved playing the guessing game of “oh! This one is DEFINITELY the killer.” Naturally whenever I got a hunch my suspect died. The suspense is incredible and you can really feel the isolation of these people on the island. With every murder the tension heightens and it gets more creepy because they know that one of them is a killer and they are all on their guard, and yet THEY KEEP GETTING KILLED. There was really no way to tell who was the killer, and therefore the revelation does come as a surprise (or it did to me) and the explanation of how it all happened makes complete sense, even if you have no idea how everything is going to resolve itself.

I most definitely recommend this novel for anyone who is looking for a good mystery or if you want to start reading Agatha Christie. Based on this book I’d say she lives up to her immense reputation and I am looking forward to reading everything she has to offer. I can’t wait to meet Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple! Agatha Christie certainly is the queen of mystery :) show less

such a fun way to slowly kill all these people in a way that feels and seems so totally impossible. honestly pretty brilliant and the way she sparked an entire type of mystery, basically just people trying to do something like this, says all you need to know about how innovative and bold she was to do this. super fun to keep guessing and trying to figure it all out, even as i was pretty sure i remembered who did it, i still was completely thrown off by how it could be possible. the reader is constantly changing their mind or reevaluating the entire time, really really fun. 4 stars.

from dec 2016: 3.25 stars. this was my first agatha christie. it was fun and kept me guessing, but it's more than a bit farfetched. still, she actually found show more a way to make it possible for these 10 people to be killed one by one, while keeping up the suspense of how and who, when it seemed impossible that she could. admittedly, there are many small liberties that she takes (maybe some aren't so small) to make it work, but overall it does, and is pretty fun along the way. i mean, pulling this entire thing together the way that she does, even giving her leeway with some of it, is pretty incredible. not to mention that the whole red herring thing - which she totally tells us about but still is a huge twist - is completely brilliant. i mean, she tells us it's a red herring, but still we don't know how it is, and so the whole thing is a surprise. but she told us. brilliant. show less

A dark cozy mystery, maybe. (Or is that an oxymoron?)

The story is a wickedly clever interpretation of an old minstrel song. I regularly referred back to the lyrics hoping I could predict how the murders would play out, one by one. And to whom. I'm not ashamed to say I didn't guess very well, and did not guess the culprit. You see, Christie was not writing a story here for us to solve. This story was written to immerse ourselves in the predicament.

We have much to keep us busy in the story beyond the question of whodunnit, like "Has anyone been unjustly accused?" or "What is he/she hiding?" or "Who is most monstrous? The most empathetic? The most self-deluded?" As the novel progresses, we are privileged to the characters' inner thoughts, show more and thus form unfavorable judgements in spite of their justifications. I wouldn't say the characters were fully "round," but round enough, distinct enough. At each death, my general empathy had waxed and waned. There were no angels.

Without the epilogue, few readers would have solved it. If And Then There Were None were written today, the epilogue might be done away with, making it more modernly bleak. It would change from a book you read once to one that would readily invite a re-read, and interpretations would abound. But who am I to critique the Agatha Christie?! This was my first of her books and it happily lived up to its classic status.

Now where is that Miss Marple? I'm primed for some old village busybody sleuthing and some more very good Christie storytelling.. show less

Ten people are invited to vacation or work on an isolated island. Their host is no where to be found and, one by one, they are being murdered with no means of escape. It sounds like a horror novel but it's pure mystery. Who's the murderer and where can he be hiding? How can the people remaining best protect themselves, and what can they learn from each successive murder that will help them?

It's a rare novel I can be gripped by enough to read in a weekend, but this was one of them. I've read a lot of the author's work but always her Poirot stories, and it was a near-tragedy that I overlooked this one for so long until ... thank you LT for ranking this as her most popular work. As always with Agatha Christie, it did not go where I show more expected and I did not guess the culprit. Foiled again! show less

This was my first time reading 'And Then There Were None'. All I knew about it was that it is a favourite with many Christie readers and that its original title was dropped because it was racist, although it hadn't even raised an eyebrow when it was published in 1939.

By the time I was three chapters in, I was a little stunned to see that Agatha Christie seems to have been the first to come up with the ten-strangers-invited-to-an-island-by-someone-they-don't-know-and-get-killed-one-by-one-in-bizarre-ways premise. It's been used many times since, sometimes with a remote country house or a penthouse apartment, or a party in a castle but still using the same conceit.

Apart from the racist language and the built-in imperialist attitudes, 'And show more Then There Were None' felt fresh and modern.

It seems to me that it was an experimental book for Christie. The was no amateur sleuth to untangle the mystery, no international criminal conspiracy driving the action. Just ten people being killed one by one by an unseen hand. The story borders more on horror than mystery as each killing increases the terror and despair of the survivors, each of whom is hiding a secret that feeds their guilt. The storytelling style is novel, especially in the way the denouement is handled.

I thought the experiment was successful in building an atmosphere of claustrophobic terror and in keeping the reader guessing about how the whole thing was being managed and by whom. The resolution was clever and almost impossibly complicated but I was happy to roll with it for its bravado and its novelty. For the most part, the book was a page-turning thriller.

Not everything about the experiment worked as well as it should have. I didn't believe in the penultimate death, driven by mental manipulation that I found too insubstantial to be believable. I didn't like the way the denouement was handled. I understand why the story was told that way but I felt the story lost momentum and the big reveal, rather than being the last dramatic flourish of a magician astounding me with her trick, became a slightly laboured documentary explaining how the trick worked. show less

I've had my paperback copy of this book for about 15 years, and it’s been that long since I'd read it. It stood out to me as I was arranging things in my largest bookcase, likely because I had plans to see a theatrical version of "Murder on the Orient Express" within a week. So I thought I'd settle in with this and have some fun.

And I did have fun - despite refreshing my memory on the very unfortunate racist original title, which was changed to yet another racially charged title, only to finally be settled on globally in 1985 to its current title.

There are other small bits that solidify "time and place" of the book's beginnings - so be mindful of this, but don't let it keep you from enjoying this wonderfully crafted mystery.

The show more intrigue begins right away, as we meet the ten invitees, each one having a secret history and each one accepting at face value their perfectly innocuous invitations to spend some time at an upscale, private island home.

The murders begin the very first night, but we don't think of them as murders right away. That comes later - and suspicions grow quickly.

Who can one trust? The novel moves from a basic whodunnit into a strange psychological study, as terror grows and trust erodes with each discovery of another body. There's a wild storm outside, further isolating the house guests from any hope of escape.

The book is atmospheric, creepy, violent and a complete page turner. The cover of my edition boasts that this novel is "the world’s best-selling mystery," and I believe it.

Recommended for all lovers of mysteries and of Agatha Christie in particular. show less