“From now on, it is our task to suspect each and everyone amongst us. Forewarned is forearmed. Take no risks and be alert to danger. That is all.”
This is one of many mysterious quotes found in Agatha Christie’s best-selling novel, And Then There Were None. And Then There Were None features the stories of ten strangers, all with a wide variety of occupations and backstories, including a judge with an obsession with justice, a governess, a soldier, a doctor, a police inspector, a religious woman, a butler and his wife, a war general, and a handsome athlete.
All ten characters have one thing in common: they were invited to Soldier Island because they got away with a crime they had previously committed. Following their arrivals, people begin to die one by one and something becomes very clear: there is a killer among the 10 strangers.
The crux of the story revolves around a nursery rhyme called Ten Little Indians. In the dining room are 10 soldier figurines, which foreshadows the characters’ deaths. Each time a life is taken by the killer, a soldier figurine is taken away, until there are none left. Within a matter of days, blind accusations run amok, pacts of peace were created, but the killer kept killing and people continued to die.
And Then There Were None was an enjoyable read and arguably my favorite mystery novel of all time. I consider myself to be an avid mystery novel fanatic, however, lots of other novels I have read left me unfazed by the ending and I was able to predict the plot twists very accurately.
This novel is completely different.
Christie has the ability to trick you into guessing and guessing again, until you feel certain who the real killer is, and then turns the plot in a different direction. Nearing 300 pages, And Then There Were None is a moderate read. I have read and re-read this novel multiple times. Nonetheless, each twist and turn still gives me chills. Having read many of Christie’s other works, And Then There Were None remains my all-time favorite.
Above all, what I found the most ideal about the novel is the characters. While many fellow readers of And Then There Were None had complaints about the overwhelming number of characters, which made it hard to connect with them. But I actually think that the opposite is true. Christie did a great job differentiating and developing each character with the perfect amount of depth. Even further, the sheer complexity of each character contributed to the book’s ability to keep the reader guessing till the last few pages.
Although I understand why some find themselves unable to empathize with any of the characters, I do not think Christie’s intent was for us to particularly like any of the characters, but rather to develop a sense of suspicion and try to decipher each character piece by piece.
As much as I loved this book, it was not flawless in my eyes. A key tactic Christie uses when presenting characters is through lengthy, internal monologues. While this does give insight into the character’s personalities, I would have wished for more interpersonal interactions in the story. In addition to this, if there were so many internal dialogues, how did it not give away who the killer was? The murderer was obviously a skillful one, meaning he/she was constantly plotting the death of the next victim, so how did the monologues not give anything away? I found this quite confusing.
Behind the exciting plot and baffling murders emerge many key societal themes, the most evident being justice. The entire premise behind luring ten criminals to an island and killing them is to achieve true justice, which exposes evident flaws with criminal justice systems across the world. One of the characters lured to the island is Dr. Edward Armstrong, who performed surgery on a patient while drunk yet got away with his crime. This leads the reader to ponder: is it because the criminal justice system favors individuals of certain ethnicities? Is it because the judge was biased? The possibilities are endless and Christie does a great job exposing the problem of false justice in our modern society.
Overall, And Then There Were None is a very refreshing read that is a must-read for any mystery book fanatic. It is no wonder that the novel has lasting influence, even decades after publication. The plot is well-crafted, the ending is unexpected, and behind it all are key societal themes. Nothing less than a true gem.
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