Book Review : And then there were none
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Ok, I finally got around to reading some Agatha Christie. I’m surprised I hadn’t as I am remembering growing up around a lot of mysteries- Ellery Queen books, Orson Wells mysteries and so on.
I have had this on my TBR pile for awhile. When I first started to read, I immediately remembered that I had wanted to start with her detective stories with Poirot or Marple- which seem more down my alley.
That’s ok though. I was nervous about learning so many characters so quickly, but that worked fairly well.
Of course, ATTWN isn’t full of genre tropes, it is the trope. As Sherlock Holmes defined the detective novel, ATTWN is the definition of the Murder Mystery.
If you think of a Murder Mystery, you are thinking of this novel and maybe a little bit of the Clue movie from 1985 and board game.
Christie says in the forward what a challenge the book was. It is a testament to her craft how well it works. I could complain that the characters weren’t drawn up enough, but I do believe if she had done that, the length of the novel would cause other elements to fall apart.
I’m surprised if I haven’t seen the movie or knew the plot, but as far as I know- I didn’t know the ending. I did realize that this was more of a book without so much of a bunch of clues, but a story with a plot.
What strikes me the most is that this was written 80 years ago but the suspense and horror is written so well, that it feels absolutely modern.
I had a few guesses at the murderer and picked up on one of the main ideas, though I couldn’t quite piece it together. Christie does a pretty great job of getting you to think it is someone, for sure and then offing them in the next scene.
I also knew the ending was going to be a tough sell for me, but I was satisfied with it.
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