Student Book Review: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Throughout the years, many great mystery novels have been written by any number of great authors. It is easily argued that one of the greatest, however, is Agatha Christie. This lovely author has sold almost four billion copies of her novels around the world, and her book sales are only beat by Shakespeare. She has written many amazing mysteries, with the most prominent being And Then There Were None.

 In case you haven’t heard of the plot before, it goes like this: ten strangers are invited to an isolated island by a mysterious “U.N. Owen.” At dinner, they are each accused of having a guilty secret, and by the end of the evening, one of them is dead. With no way off the island, the guests come to a terrifying conclusion... The murderer is still on the island, hidden in plain sight amongst them, and he won’t stop until they’re all dead. If the plot sounds a little familiar, maybe it’s because the classic “Clue” board game was based on this plot. This story began a whole new sub-genre too; closed-house mysteries.

This book starts hurdling into the mystery at a fast pace and never lets up. The plot is quick and intense, and I dare you to even try to figure out who the murderer is before the book tells you. I would give this book nine out of ten, if only for the fact that being published eighty years ago and British, some of the vocabulary is difficult to understand. However, it doesn’t take much away from the amazing plot by the queen of mystery herself. This book is for people who love mystery, for people that can’t stop watching true crime videos (it’s not real, but sure feels like it) and anyone that enjoys classic detective stories.