And Then There Were None: The World’s Favourite Agatha Christie Book

I have only recently acquired the taste for murder mysteries, blame Keigo Higashino for it and, And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie is my second book by The Queen of Crime. She now shines bright on the stage of my celebrated authors. Where the hell was I all this time, not having picked a single book by her? They are the true mysteries in the sense that they needed all the deduction power in the world and minimal help from scientific and technological progress. This book, however, blew my mind away and is definitely going to be one of those which I’d recommend to all.Ten people from extremely varied backgrounds are called to Soldier Island for a summer vacation, or so they have been made to believe, by their hosts, Mrs. and Mr. U. N. Owen. The very day they all arrive, their nightmare begins. With delay in their hosts’ arrival, these ten members of the resort are blamed for crimes they deny committing. One by one, dead bodies start turning up in a cruel accordance to a horrific nursery rhyme and they start getting out of their wits to figure out who could be behind all the bloodshed. With practically no other place to hide on the island, they suspect and agree that it has to be one of them. But who? And the bigger question, why?Agatha Christie’s writing is nothing short of amazement. She wrote in an era when detective novels were booming and usually had a stereotypical cast and setting, a small English village/place cut off from the outside world, a few characters who had links to aristocrats, suspicious behavior by a suspect, the unlikeliest of characters revealed to be the culprit and the disclosure happening in a room full of all the characters (or whoever is remaining after the crime). And yes, how can I forget the detective and his/her sidekick. With this book, however, Christie took liberties and changed the conventional way of murder mystery writing. In her own words, “Ten people had to die without it becoming ridiculous or the murderer being obvious.” She followed none of the mentioned stereotypes and succeeded beautifully. Christie’s explanations behind the crime and the criminal are always so practical and logical, that it seems that nothing else could have been possible but this. With the lack of forensic aid and tools that we have today, what she wrote back then and how she included simple objects and clues in her stories which made all the difference, can only be birthed by a true talent. But with all that is good, comes something that remains amiss. The beginning seemed too much to handle, with introduction of characters in the blink of an eye, it was hard to keep track. And as I was getting a grasp on the characters, they started to drop dead, just like that. Our author doesn’t procrastinate. It won’t be wrong to say that the character building was not at all what I had expected, it was just short of what I would call acceptable. A little more background detail and a little more heart-to-heart between the inhabitants of the Soldier Island would have only fueled my appetite for more. For me, it lacked that connection with the characters I usually want to feel in the books I read. The story, undoubtedly, is fast paced, and so is the death that comes upon.With all that the book has to offer, what stuck out most for me was the guilt and the justice. What makes one guilty to others and not to themselves? Can the actions of oneself, righteous or not, make one guilty of killing someone? And can just acting as per own nature and being a prude, qualify? How does someone not feel guilty and yet, others do? Are we supposed to give out judgments on them? Why and how? The story is a dark psychological thriller at its best. Showing a mirror to everyone who reads it, look within yourself and see if you can consider yourself not guilty. And if guilty, then how deep and cold it runs. Playing with minds is what it does, leaving one to speculate more than what is written. Do you think you are guiltless?

I’ve watched a lot of detective series like Sherlock Holmes by Robert Downey Jr., read Conan Doyle's books, and even followed Detective Conan. While I get why people rate some of these as number one, I honestly don’t get the hype. Sure, the storyline has good suspense, but the climax often falls flat. There’s no way to figure out who the criminal is—no clues, no mistakes, no background on the culprit. In the other series I mentioned, if you pay close attention, you can spot hints about the tricks the criminals use. But here, it feels like we’re just along for the ride because of the narration, not because we can solve anything ourselves.

INDEED ONE OF THE BEST MYSTERIES EVER WRITTEN ON EARTH. THE PLOT IS ENCHANTING AND ITS A PAGE TURNER. NO WONDER WHY SHE IS THE QUEEN OF CRIME. NO SECOND OPINIONS. HANDS DOWN , ONE OF THE FINEST PIECES OF CRIMINAL THRILLER/MYSTERY OR WHATEVER U CALL IT. NOT A PIRATED COPY SO DONT WORRY.

I was pleased with this book. It was clear, straightforward, baffling,.and yet had a perfectly reasonable expectation; in fact it had to have an epilogue in order to explain it.

(The review below is a slightly long one – in case, you don’t want to go over it, the short one would of course be that you shouldn’t miss this widely acclaimed, thought provoking, cleverly written and fast paced work of Christie’s. It is among her very best and only the most astute of readers can solve it beforehand.)“This book is genuinely terrifying ... nobody is coming to save you ... no dapper Belgian detective, no twinkly-eyed and steely spinster is going to arrive and unravel it.” (~Sarah Phelps, who adapted the novel for BBC One.)This is probably one of the best ways in which I have seen this book described. The novel is fascinating and throughout it, you can feel the terrible sounding steps of an unrelenting, unforgiving, avenging justice that is not going stop until it gets its final victim down.If you have read a few of Christie's works, you might already have noticed that the underlying theme in most is that murder is ‘not nice’. “I do not approve of murder” has always been Poirot’s stance for instance, no matter how vicious the victim was and no matter how many around him agree with the general sentiment that the murder in question was in some ways ‘justified’. He has always acknowledged that the final judgement is that of the God Almighty (a heart wrenching exception is of course, in ‘Curtain’.). However in ‘And Then There Was None’, we have someone who not only approves of death as a means of justice, but also is horrifyingly willing to carry it out. With a debauched sense of justice fuelled by his convoluted psychology, the murderer assumes the power both of a supreme being and that of the law of the land and strikes off one by one, the sinners condemned.The setting of the novel is that of ten strangers getting stranded in an island. The only common strain among this odd lot is that each has something shrouded in their past - a crime that, in the case of some people are direct and for others brought forth more as a sort of causative action. Some of them believe it was justice served, some do not consider the stain in their life a crime at all, and some have been agonizing over their unfortunate stigma ever since. But whether you are repentant or crassly oblivious to your actions - Can you escape the determined passion of the diabolical, almost psychic murderer? Can you escape the haunting path set by the lines of a nursery rhyme? Can you in the very least, know who killed you?The novel is fast paced - so grimly and steadily marching, that it will leave you gasping. This is also, not something you can leisurely read over your tea. Once you start, you will have to finish it - and curiously enough, once the last murder is over, you would feel a sense of relief, so overwhelming that in some ways, the end doesn't matter. It is curious and very curious, indeed.

Oh how I love this book.My first ever work of Agatha Christie and it did not disappoints me at all.The story woven is mind boggling so many times that my detective skills were of no use.The ending shook me to the bits but I imagined a closed one regardless of the open ending we get.