24. Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?

By Roz Chast

23. Skeleton Crew

By Stephen King

 

22. And Then There Were None

By Agatha Christie

Ever since I read The Decagon House Murders, I've been wanting to read its direct influence, Dame Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. It was on my list of books to borrow from the library, but I happened to find a copy at Kestrel Books during my last Vancouver visit.  It's a 2016 paperback tie-in for the TV mini-series, which I ended up watching soon after finishing the book.

And Then There Were None was only my 2nd AG book I've ever read, the first being Murder on the Orient Express.  It's Christie's best-selling novel and also the world's best-selling mystery, having sold more than 100 million copies worldwide. 

Now that I've read AATWN, I can say that Decagon House had most definitely recycled its formula/template but also managed to do something quite different and unique. I really enjoyed ATTWN, more so than Orient Express, which I found implausible at times.  ATTWN was more grounded in reality and also quite dark in how human nature was portrayed.  When you have a group of people with questionable morals trapped on a small island with a killer on the loose, it makes for a most interesting premise!

Like many mysteries I've read, I didn't rack my brain too much trying to solve it based on the assumption that the info would be doled out strategically by the writer.  But I was able to deduce a few things:

• that Dr Armstrong may be needed as a collaborator because he's the one who's been stating whether someone was "officially" dead when their body was found
• because of this, Dr A. may intentionally identify a body as dead when they're only pretending to be dead
• and this person may be the killer because no one would think to search or check a dead person
• at first, the description of how Dr Armstrong checked the body of Judge Wargrave seemed a bit sus
• but then later, the police declared that Judge Wargrave was indeed shot in the head, it threw me off
• I was able to deduce that Miss Claythorne would be the last victim to hang herself when I saw the hook hanging from her ceiling, but what would her motive be for killing all those people?  And the last person to die according to the nursery rhyme didn't necessarily mean they were the mastermind. I was only rooting for her because she seemed the most unlikely person to be the mass murderer.

But Miss C's demise seemed too contrived and convenient. The way it had been written didn’t seem believable. She had been haunted by past memories, but she wasn't all that guilt-ridden.  She seemed more sad about losing her beau than causing the boy to drown.  She also had a strong will to survive by besting the last man (Lombard) so it didn’t make sense that she would suddenly succumb to the rhyme and hang herself.  

If Christie had given her a believable reason to end her life, like how bad it would look if she was the last survivor, then perhaps her deciding to end her life would be more convincing, but Christie didn't spend much time on that.  That was the only flaw for me. 

When I reached the end of the story, I realized I was on the right track but couldn't really link everything together nor provide a good explanation. Thus, I did need Christie's explanation at the very end!