CHRISTIE, AGATHA
– AND THEN THERE WERE NONE. The darkest and gloomiest of Christie’s many
whodunits (do keep in mind that this review will divulge the ending). This is
the one with no detective, in which the main villain actually gets away with
his crimes. Controversially, the book was originally sold under the title ‘Ten
Little Niggers’, a reference to the nursery rhyme about ten unfortunate people
getting killed one by one until they had all perished (a macabre take on Ten
Green Bottles). The poem echoes the events in the book in which ten people are
invited to a remote island. None of them know each other or why they have been
invited. As they question one another, the murders start. One by one, the
guests are killed off. As no one else is on the Island, the survivors are
driven to increasing paranoia about the other people around them. Soon, there
are only two people left. Each of them accuses the other of being the killer,
and when one of them is murdered, the other one, a woman, is extremely
frightened and confused. She knows she is not the murderer. In fact, the killer
faked his own death earlier and they all assumed he was an early victim of his
own killing spree. The killer hangs the last victim, and then, quite insane,
writes down his story in the first person. He adds at he end that he will now
kill himself too, and puts the letter in a bottle which he throws into the sea.
The story only comes to light when the bottle is found. This is a chilling story. Film versions
often fall short of killing the last victim in order to have someone survive.
The killer having faked his own death has itself been much imitated. This is a
true classic and possibly a unique detective story. http://uk.agathachristie.com/site/home/
Arthur Chappell
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