• AND THEN THERE WERE NONE
• by Agatha Christie
• [voted by pbs readers as #19]
• 233 pages

In the victory and relief of completing Dune, I knew I deserved a juicy treat. And when I picked this title out of the box, I stopped looking. And got really, really happy.

Of course, I read this as a kid and I’ve seen the play several times. But I wasn’t ready for how giddy I felt just reading something this good after something that had seemed endless.

The first couple of pages were so dreamy that I felt like a teenaged boy looking at pornography under my blanket.

And on top of how fun it was, it was also exhilarating. In these days, of both reading and listening to audible, I have had the occasion to listen to quite a few other Agatha Christie books and I must say, I have been left wanting.

Though in so many ways she started a huge ball rolling that has swept every mystery writer since into her shadow, that explains her significance. Her stories have not always been strong. Her characters are somewhat notoriously ill-defined. After a couple of lukewarm ones, I started to say to myself – this is the reason they keep making movies of the same three of these. Because three of them are the ones that are really good!

Yet this is the story that is completely set apart from that. It is the greatest plot imaginable. 10 people on an island are being killed off without being able to flee and without being able to determine who is doing it!

Ms. Christie, in the front of this edition, mentions that it was her most ambitious plot, figuring out how you keep killing people while still hiding the identity of the killer. And she is proud that she pulled it off. Proud is what she should be. This little tome is as classic a suspense tale than anything Hitchcock pulled off.

I have been reading it for two nights and am almost half way through it. I dare you to read it any slower than that!

DONE.

I read the last 70 pages all at once. Made me wonder. If there were a prize for the book that caused the most people to read the last chunk of it all at once because they were so tied to finding out the answer, I bet this would easily be in the top five of all time.

There is nothing deep to say here. It is master story telling. Keeps you guessing to the end and beyond. In my humble opinion, it is Christie’s very best. If the public had to pick one book for this list to represent her, this is by far the best pick. A plot that has been borrowed ever since and undoubtedly will be till the end of time. The set up, the premise and the details are so classic that nothing else of hers could top it.

Really, really fun. What a lovely break to read this!