Last week I stopped by my local Barnes & Noble to pick up And Then There Were None based on a staff recommendation. To kick off Women’s History Month, I feel there is no better way than to take the next few weeks and pay homage to one of the most badass women writers in the game - the queen of mystery herself, Agatha Christie! According to Christie's website, she is "the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare."
Much like Christie’s other novels, And Then There Were None was just too good to put down. There are so many elements of this novel that make it one of the best mysteries ever written, but I want to take the time to highlight a few - the characters, the plot and the epilogue/final manuscript.
Characters
The novel begins individually describing the 8 characters traveling to Soldier Island. At first the introduction of so many characters is overwhelming, but as the story progresses, Christie pulls so much detail out of each one that the reader connects with and remembers them with ease. Most authors in today’s time would not dare introduce so many characters in a less-than-three-hundred-page novel. But, Christie does so with such skill, any hesitations are unfounded.
The characters are so imaginative that it is hard to resonate fully with only one. However, I found myself drawn to different aspects of each character - Wargrave’s practicality, Lombard’s thirst for adventure, Miss Brent’s unwavering faith, Vera’s sense of womanly authority, Boles’ secrecy and Dr. Armstrong’s uneasiness. However, the character I found myself drawn to the most was Captain Lombard. This is possibly because this character is so foreign from my own self that he is undeniably fascinating. I felt that often, Lombard’s character was questioned - he was often seen as a crook and untrustworthy. Ironically, it is him in the end who gets betrayed by his fellow acquaintance, not the other way around. I also felt that in a strange way, Lombard was smarter than the rest of the group, as his theory about who the murderer might be is just about spot on.
While each character has their own demons, the three characters I found the most deplorable were Vera Claythorne, Emily Brent and Anthony Marston, mostly because their victims were children. Additionally, I had an extreme issue with Brent’s and Marston’s lack of remorse.
Plot
It takes a very gifted writer to craft a murderous killing-spree based off a nursery rhyme, mention said nursery rhyme about a million times throughout and still shock the readers with how the story unfolds. I flipped back to those very beginning pages after each murder, amazed by how subtle the connections were. Christie had me chanting and then there were five, and then were four, and then there were three until each character was plucked off. And yet, still, by the end my mind was racing to figure out who was responsible (spoiler: every single one of my theories was wrong).
Part of why Christie is so successful is because she skillfully keeps readers in the dark. All the evidence is there, laid out for us to pick apart. Yet still, the motive, means and character are just slightly out of reach.
Epilogue and Final Manuscript
Mystery books nowadays rarely ever leave the reveal until the post scripts. Maybe because - much like myself - audiences have less of an attention span and are way too into instant gratification. However, the fact that the only way to make any sense of the plot is to read until the literal last page of the book is deliciously evil. Additionally, the idea that the killer’s confession simply washed up, “message in a bottle” style drove me crazy. The murders were so genius, the only way the police were able to solve it was a written confession they came about through fantastical means. If the confession had not been revealed, I still would be sitting here with my book, scratching my head and coming up with utterly wrong theories.
Thank you for reading! Next week I will be reviewing and comparing another Christie novel and its newly released movie counterpart! Guess the book in the comments below! Hint: It rhymes with seth on the smile. ;)
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