Agatha Christie, a name I saw at every bookstore and avoided every single time. The books ‘looked’ short, felt they had to be short stories for pre-teens. How wrong was I, to neglect the suggestion not to judge books by cover, by how they ‘looked’.
And Then There Were None has to one of the finest, sharpest and crispiest whodunit mysteries I have ever read. Everything is perfect, to-the-point; all about the main story and the characters involved. Chapters after chapters, new plot twists are revealed. The story never stagnates. No character eats up the pages. No sub-plots are introduced just to thicken the book binds.
But most importantly, there is no single person that knows-all-but-shows-none. Incidents occur and they are presented with all the details visible to the characters involved. Nothing is hidden, made visible only to the selected one, the detective. Because there is none.
The experience reading this gem is amazing. I pride myself to foresee the final mystery way bit early than it actually is uncovered; or even hinted at. This one bowled me over. Almost all the 10 characters were on my criminal radar at some point. None stayed there for significant time though. Even post the final chapter, I stayed stumped, wondering what has been uncovered. Because, frankly, nothing is. This, indeed, is a novel of a kind.
If you love mysteries and haven’t yet hopped this ride, you must. Agatha Christie says this was the most difficult novel for her to write, she took utmost effort to make sure she pens a perfect, unsolvable murder mystery. All I can say is she did succeed.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars