And Then There Were None

Agatha Christie weaves a unique and intriguing mystery in And Then There Were None. I didn't find the deaths contrite and I loved the use of the nursery rhyme to give clues not only to the reader, but the characters in the book. Modern mystery writes could certainly use her works as a beacon of how to write true mystery with well developed characters and plot twists that leave the reader guessing. What seems obvious is often not, what seems insignificant is of major consequence and that is how a mystery should be. Certainly a "good read!"

A slow burner... very knives out, clue, who done it. If thats your thing, this books for you. Personally, it bored me.

The book and its plot are among the finest examples of mystery writing, and I can see why Agatha Christie is still known as the Queen of Crime. Now that that’s out of the way, what I really want to talk about is how I first read this. Almost all of Christie’s books I’ve read, all 66 detective works, were borrowed from libraries when I was still in school. So my first reading of this book had a different title and poem – swapping soldiers from the Ten Little Soldiers poem with one or other racist slur in the new editions. So I was curious to test how that would land with me now. In both the older and the new versions, I didn’t see these themes as the author endorsing those views. Instead, they felt like a reflection of the upper-middle-class British society in which Christie was writing. In this book, for example, the characters who express racist, xenophobic, sexist, and even rigid religious views are meant to be despicable, dislikable, or villainous, and I remember that as largely true for her other books, too. I may still enjoy re-reading more of her books.

Absolutely stunning.

A real page turner. Reads much more contemporary than I previously imagined.

A round of applause for Agatha Christie! A must read for any fan of suspense.

And Then There Were None is more than a book: it is a monument. It is not only Agatha Christie's greatest mystery; it is a contender for the title of greatest mystery novel ever written, period. The 5 stars acknowledge its status as an absolute work, one that transcends its genre to enter the canon of great 20th-century literature. It is mandatory reading, an experience that changes how one views detective fiction, and a demonstration of what the human mind can conceive when logic and imagination unite at their highest level. A timeless masterpiece.