Book Review of "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie ⭐⭐⭐½

The original title of this book definitely put me off for years. (Google it. I dare you.) I cast it aside immediately. But time and time again, this story just kept popping up. One of my favorite Escape Pod short stories (And Then There Were N - One) references the title, and I'm currently writing a mystery. After a while, it gets harder and harder to just say I don't want to read it. This is purportedly one of the greats written by one of the greats.

So, I pick it up...and almost DNF'd it within the first two chapters. The writing style is...difficult to read, to say the least. Christie does this really weird thing I've never seen before where she sometimes (a lot of the times here) uses dialogue tags like this:

Emily said:
"Here's the thing I'm saying! On the next line!"

WHY is the dialogue on a new line? And she jumps into the POV of everyone, which was a little hard to follow at first. It got so bad that I had to start taking notes of who was who because there wasn't enough description of the people. So many names—one of them even has a fake name! It was all terribly confusing.

But, I wanted to at least be able to say, "Yeah, I read that. Didn't like it." I wanted to know what this story offered to the world and why people said it was one of the best mysteries ever written. I'm a believer in DNFing, but this was for research!

I'm so glad I pushed through.

After a few chapters, the dialogue tag oddity more or less became unnoticeable, and she stopped jumping around as much (mainly because they kept dying). And then the fun began.

Who was the killer?

Because it's 2026, I'd already seen countless things that take inspiration from this or reference it in some way. So—spoilers—it was never a possibility to me that there was an 11th person on that island. I always knew it had to be one of the ten.

I have read one other Christie book—Murder on the Orient Express—and hated it, another reason I put this one off for so long. I despise the conclusion to the mystery; it's not at all satisfying to me. (I won't spoil it, go read it.) So, reading this, I really hoped it was not something similar. My conclusion, upon reaching the final chapter, was that basically each of them had killed the other.

Then there's an epilogue which...only confuses me more. The very last death gets additional information added to it, something seemingly impossible.

How?

Well...I should have looked at other modern-day children of this story. Again, I won't spoil it, but there's a chapter after the epilogue that explains it all. Bravo. I had suspected something like this—never this person, though, and never in the way described—but was thrown off the scent quite cleverly. By the end, it seemed almost impossible.

While I like this book much better than Murder on the Orient Express, it's still...lacking. But I have to take into account that this was probably very clever and inventive upon its release. It's only lacking because I've seen this a million times now. And I feel like there weren't enough clues to point to the truth. I like the feeling of looking back and going, "DAMN! It was right there the whole time!" There are some clues, sure, but the biggest one pointing to this person doesn't come until the epilogue, when it's technically too late.

Speaking of its release, I want to make a few notes. One: the men here are kind of insufferable. They are...misognystic, I think is the proper term. I absolutely hate the way they talk about Mrs. Rogers, Emily, and Vera—and on that same note, I hate the way Christie wrote them (the women). The only woman seemingly fleshed out is Vera, and she's made to be this madwoman, flustered with her emotions the entire time.

And on a more lighthearted note about the time: the word "fantastic." I'm very thankful to have recently come across an explanation that the definition of that word has changed over the years. I learned this shortly after the "Fantastic Four" movie, I believe. "Fantastic" used to mean something like "weird" or "odd," so when the F4 were naming themselves, they were essentially saying they were now four weirdos. Over time, it shifted. And it's used a few times here in ways that would make no sense today, but with that bit of insight, makes it clear.

Sorry, had to ramble. Words are cool.

I have to give this three-and-a-half stars. Much better than I thought it was going to be, and I see it's impact. I just wish it had been a little more solvable, even if only in hindsight.

Edit: I just watched Daniel Greene's walk through of the book and his attempt at solving it, and...I think I must have just forgotten some of the clues, or did not understand them. Hearing him go through it makes certain things obvious now, when I had originally thought all the clues were too subtle to pick up. Yall, I think I'm just not a good detective. LMAO I should probably take more notes during my next mystery read; maybe then I'll have better luck.

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