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The Year of Women--in which I'm devoting 2021 to reading female authors only--continues with my introduction to the fiction of Dame Agatha Christie! I chose And Then There Were None, published in the U.K. in late 1939 and the U.S. in early 1940. The Christie estate claims that this is the bestselling crime novel of all time. I was curious about it because the suspense framework was echoed by my favorite movie of all time: Alien. While nothing is as terrifying as that, Christie tossed and turned me all the way through with this ghoulishly conjured and immaculately penned thriller.�� ��



The story begins with eight strangers arriving at a spot on the Devon coast, each having received invitations for business or pleasure on the private "Soldier Island" as guests of Ulick Norman Owen and Una Nancy Owen, a couple they’ve never met. Mr. Justice Wargrave is a retired criminal judge. Vera Claythorne is a young woman on leave from her job as a mistress at a girls�� school. Phillip Lombard is a mercenary concealing a revolver. Miss Emily Brent is a Bible thumping spinster. General John Macarthur is a widowed World War I veteran. Dr. Edward Armstrong is a renowned physician. Anthony Marston is a young hot rodder. Will Blore is a private investigator. Blore offers the others a fake name, "Natal Davis," and claims to be from South Africa.��

Deposited on the island by a ferryman, the group are greeted by Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, the butler and housekeeper, who inform the party that not only have the Owens not arrived, but they’ve never seen them, having been employed only a week prior and given instructions on how to proceed. All ten received offers of luxuriating rest or gainful employment on the island from individuals they are at least marginally acquainted with. None thought to refuse, but without hosts or means to leave, they grow uneasy.

Dinner was drawing to a close.

The food had been good, the wine perfect. Rogers waited well.

Every one was in better spirits. They had begun to talk to each other with more freedom and intimacy.

Mr. Justice Wargrave, mellowed by the excellent port, was being amusing in a caustic fashion, Dr. Armstrong and Tony Marston were listening to him. Miss Brent chatted to General Macarthur, they had discovered some mutual friends. Vera Claythorne was asking Mr. Davis intelligent questions about South Africa. Mr. Davis was quite fluent on the subject. Lombard listened to the conversation. Once or twice he looked up quickly, and his eyes narrowed. Now and then his eyes played around the table, studying the others.

Anthony Marson said suddenly:

"Quaint, these things, aren't they?"

In the centre of the round table, on a circular glass stand, were some little china figures.

"Soldiers," said Tony. "Soldier Island. I suppose that's the idea."

Vera leaned forward.

"I wonder. How many are there. Ten?"

"Yes--ten there are."

Vera cried:

"What fun! They're the ten little soldier boys of the nursery rhyme, I suppose. In my bedroom the rhyme is framed and hung up over the mantelplace."

Lombard said:

"Mine too."

"And mine."

"And mine."

Everybody joined in the chorus. Vera said:

"It's an amusing idea, isn't it?"

Mr. Justice Wargrave grunted:

"Remarkably childish," and helped himself to the port.��

After dinner, a phonograph record is played. Rather than music, accusations of murder are leveled specifically at each person in the house. Almost immediately, guests begin dropping or turning up dead. After a second fatality is discovered in the morning, the remaining eight surmise that a murderer is in their midst. Individually, their consciences weigh on them regarding the deaths responsible for summoning each of them to the island. Worse, their ferry back to the mainland is nowhere to be found and a storm is approaching. Three of the men conduct a search of the island but discover no one hiding. The guests realize that��"Ulick Norman Owen" and "Una Nancy Owen" are anagrams for "Unknown."��It is agreed that the murderer must be among them.

From the start, And Then There Were None proceeds with a crystal clear and delightful command of English I've grown to enjoy from British writers born in the 19th century, H.G. Wells and George Orwell specifically. There is nary a wasted word on the page. The murder plot is devilish and Christie keeps upping the stakes, from the possibility of a killer being on the prowl to the much more compelling prospect that one of our characters isn't who they appear to be. She balances the paranoia with internal monologues from several of the characters over the deaths they've been accused of. The pacing is mathematically precise, neither ending too quickly without sufficient explanation or going on too long with too much information.��

The title has a sordid history. It was published in the U.K. as Ten Little N-----s in newspaper serial and book form, reflecting the 19th century rhyme Christie’s murderer uses as a framework. Considered racially offensive even in 1940, the novel was published as And Then There Were None in the U.S. It’s also been published as Ten Little Indians or Ten Little Soldiers, with the location becoming "Indian Island" or "Solider Island" depending on the name of the rhyme. The china dolls are referred to as either Indians or soldiers. The edition I read uses “soldier�� throughout.��

Agatha Christie was born in 1890 in Tourqay, Devon. Homeschooled, Agatha fancied making up stories with her older sister Madge and their mother. While her first husband was deployed in World War I, Christie worked as an assistant in a pharmacy, beginning a lifelong study of drugs and poisons. Motivated by Madge, Agatha wrote a mystery novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, published to modest success in 1920. She kept writing and earned monumental success with more mysteries, many featuring Belgian detective Hercule Poirot or English village spinster Miss Marple. The author died in 1976, one year after killing off Poirot��in print.��



In the event you missed them. Previous reviews in the Year of Women:��

-- Come Closer, Sara Gran
-- Veronica, Mary Gaitskill
-- Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys, Viv Albertine
-- Pizza Girl, Jean Kyoung Frazier
-- My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Ottessa Moshfegh
-- Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Fannie Flagg
-- The Memoirs of Cleopatra, Margaret George
-- Miss Pinkerton, Mary Roberts Rinehart
-- Beast in View, Margaret Millar
-- Lying In Wait, Liz Nugent