Whodunit?

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie.

Firstly, I would like to include a trigger warning - as you will probably know the early editions of this book contained overtly racist language.

Originally published as Ten Little Niggers (I'll come to this shortly), it is a mystery about 10 largely unconnected people - each with a guilty secret - who are lured to an island off the Devon coast and who - as the narrative makes clear early on - are all going to die. But they are the only ones on the island!

As the corpses relentlessly pile up, tension builds among the dwindling survivors - meanwhile frustration grows for the reader, as the impossible seems to be happening!

It's a clever plot (all is revealed at the end), if a little far-fetched - but, hey - sometimes you have to give the author the benefit of the doubt in order to entertain!

In typical Christie fashion it is almost entirely plot-centric, and there is little of literary merit to get one's teeth into. In fact, technically, the writing isn't so hot. The setting is very stark (a 'modern' house), and so I also missed the usual nostalgia trip that goes with her novels. But it's all about the plot.

Regarding the former title, no such changes extend into the text of my edition, which sees the story unfold on Nigger Island (so named because it resembles the profile of a negro's head - one of the far-fetched aspects: that ancient Devonshire folk would invent such an appellation) and during which miniature statuettes and a nursery rhyme, both alluding to the original title, play an ongoing role. This aspect is more than a little unsettling.
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Published on August 29, 2014 14:36 Tags: agatha-christie, and-then-there-were-none, ten-little-niggers
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message 1: by [deleted user] (new)

Hmm,nothing endearing about this at all. I've read the book before of course but will see it through fresh eyes, as it were. Thanks again for making me think about what I read, Bruce.


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