And Then There Were None

I knew that the best way to start reading the literary work by Agatha Christie was choosing her most known book. And There were none is the best-selling mystery novel of all time with 100 million of copies, and the fifth book in the list comprehending all genres. That is something to give to Agatha Christie the respect that she deserves.

Initially this novel on UK was titled Ten Little Niggers, only because the original nursery rhyme was called that but it was obviously seen as racist, then in USA was decided to change the title to Ten Little Indians, but again obviously as seen as racist again, so at the end the title was changed to And There were none, and the nursery rhyme inside the book was changed to “Ten Little Soldiers”, curiously enough none member of any army so far as pointed out as racist that final change. I mean, the title was just because a widely known nursery rhyme and none character on the book was afro-american or native-american.

To this, I want to comment that it’s lucky that not many children would had more nightmares since a lot of nursery rhymes have truly scary lyrics. No wonder in stuff like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Saphire and Steel were used nursery rhymes with truly scary effects.

Returning to the novel, it was a remarkable reading. Great atmosphere where you feel as trapped as those people on that island.

I want to comment that at some point I figured it out who was the murderer, don’t worry, I won’t tell it, and I have no doubt that some would say: “Oh, sure! I believe you Sherlock!”. However I do indeed discovered it. This is not my first mystery story. I have read several books in the genre and I have watched a lot of TV shows like Murder, She Wrote, Columbo, Criminal Minds, CSI: Miami, etc… And while that doesn’t turn me into a detective, in my defense, I knew who was only because I focused on the “why” and not the “how” that certainly I didn’t know that. You can say that I did an amateur criminal profile and that helped me to have a suspect of my own that it resulted true. Also, I had some advantage for being Spanish speaking since there is a clue that only can be detected due that not matter that I read the novel on English, but taking in account the very detail that it’s indeed a printed novel, I catched something and putting together some clues. Well, I figured it out. Believe or not. It doesn’t matter.

Anyway, I think that many of the fun of reading this kind of mystery novels is trying to figure out the culprit during the process of reading the book. Not matter if you guess right or not, always it’s rewarding when the mystery is explained. A delicious way to make your neurons to exercise.

Again, knowing who was, or at least thinking that I knew who was, since obviously I couldn’t confirm it until reading the whole book, it didn’t help me to know how everything was made until it was explained on the novel. Definitely, Agatha Christie is the queen of mystery!

Certainly, this novel isn’t only a marvellous detective mystery book but also a truly scary horror story. Priceless setting for a scenario and fantastic twisted character developing.

Appendix: (July 23rd, 2014)

The clue that I found thanks that I am a born Spanish-language speaker:

WARNING!!! WARNING!!! WARNING!!! WARNING!!!

Read ONLY if you already read the novel, since this is a mega-spoiler telling who the culprit is!

I seldom put spoilers in my reviews, but I wrote this appendix basically since I was contacted by several readers asking me about the “big clue” and well, while I don’t mind to share it, well, also I don’t want to find out later that it was written down in some other review as theirs, taking in account that it seems that only me were the one who noticed that.

Ok, the big fuzz about the clue that I found is that the first character that you find in the novel is Mr. Justice Wargrave on the chapter one, you may say: “So what?”, well, the mysterious couple who invited to all guests, the initials of both names of them are U.N.O., in the imaginary woman is “Una Nancy Owen” and the supposed husband is “U.N. Owen. U.N.O. that in Spanish can be spelled just like “uno” which means “one” on English. Maybe that a coincidence, but with Agatha Christie nothing can be left to chance, so I think that may be a clue targeted to the readers with knowledge about Spanish language.