And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie
I started reading this to pass a few minutes at the train station, and ended up reading it all in one go. I always forget that Christie’s work is so enjoyable — especially when she stays away from her series detectives (I can’t stand Poirot). She really could write a solid mystery, and I do intend to pick up some more of her one-off mysteries, and possibly also give Tommy and Tuppence a try. She has a way of setting out the scenario, the characters, and really drawing you in.
And Then There Were None features a very careful set-up: ten characters are drawn together on an island where they can essentially be marooned and prevented from calling for help. Slowly, it’s revealed that each one of them has a death on their conscience — a driving accident, treatment withheld from a dying woman, an operation performed while drunk, fellow-soldiers abandoned to die… Each one has their excuses, their reasons, and not all of these are revealed in one go. When they arrive at the island, they don’t know each other or why they’ve been called there, each brought there on false pretences: after their first dinner, however, they get a shock when a voice reads out their names and the names of the person (or people) they killed.
After that, they begin to die, one by one, according to the means specified in a sinister little nursery rhyme… Those remaining come to the conclusion (of course) that the killer is among them.
There are aspects of this which haven’t aged well: the original “Ten Little Niggers” rhyme has been expunged by now and replaced with “Soldiers”, but there’s also some unpleasantness about Jewish characters and about native peoples “not counting”. Some of that is character, of course, but some of it seems built rather unpleasantly into the narrative voice.
However, the solution of the mystery works pretty well for me (it all hangs together and makes sense, and we had the clues), and the feeling of horror/suspense is well built up. It’s an enjoyable read, if you can ignore the unpleasantness about anyone who isn’t white, British and preferably middle-class. (Not that anyone really comes off well in this book, but that group isn’t slandered for the sake of being that particular group.) It’s not exactly groundbreaking, although part of that is hindsight, but it does the job and it definitely held my attention for a solid hour or two of (mostly) enjoyment.
I’ve not read this but watched the recent TV adaptation (presumably your cover shows a still from that). Allowing for any changes brought about by production requirements the film seemed to be faithful to what you describe, and I was left guessing right till the final denouement. Chilling and, if not faintly preposterous, a nasty indictment of everyone involved, if not humanity in general.
Interesting! I just used the cover from the copy I got from the library. 😀 I don’t watch much TV, but I do find myself curious to see how they managed this one… I can imagine it working very well because it’s easier to conceal what people are thinking when you’re showing them instead of writing about them.