Book Review: And Then There Were None

"If this had been an old house, with creak­ing wood, and dark shad­ows, and heav­ily pan­elled walls, there might have been an eerie feel­ing. But this house was the essence of moder­ni­ty. There were no dark corners - ​no pos­si­ble slid­ing pan­els - it was flood­ed with elec­tric light - every­thing was new and bright and shining. There was noth­ing hid­den in this house, noth­ing con­cealed. It had no at­mo­sphere about it. Some­how, that was the most fright­en­ing thing of all."

This is the first Agatha Christie book I have attempted. When I was a teen I would read Mary Higgins Clark books and they were quite good, very intense, but after a while I stopped reading mysteries.

Adam bought me this book because it was one of the highest rated on Goodreads and he is always looking for something that I would enjoy. I was certainly not disappointed.

First, there were ten - a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a private island off the coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unknown to all of them, is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they're unwilling to reveal - and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder, and one by one they begin to fall prey to an unseen hand. As the only people on the island, unable to leave and unable to call for help, they know that the only possible suspects are among their number. And only the dead are above suspicion.

I have to admit I am a big dork. When the guests started dying off I wrote down a list of all the names. Then, I put two stars next to the people I most suspected. One star next to a couple I somewhat suspected, no star if I didn't suspect them at all and next to one name I wrote INNOCENT. I knew for a fact that person was absolutely, without a doubt innocent.

Well, it turns out my suspicions were completely wrong. My above all suspicion, completely innocent party guest was the GUILTY ONE! AHHHH! I did NOT see it coming.

I loved the book. It was creepy, it was fantastic.

The thing I didn't like about the book was that Christie would introduce the person speaking before typing the dialogue. In more contemporary writing someone would write "blah blah blah," he said. In this book it always began Soandso Said "blah blah blah." It got a little distracting but once I was past that then I could really enjoy.

I rented the movie from 1945. Don't rent it. It has a very VERY different (happy) ending. I thought it ended perfectly and they shouldn't have changed it.